Death Toll in Thai Plane Crash Rises to 88

Excerpt of report in English by Japanese news agency Kyodo

Bangkok, Sept. 17 Kyodo – The death toll from Sunday’s airliner crash at Phuket International Airport in southern Thailand rose to 88, Thai authorities said Monday.

Another 42 people have been hospitalized, the Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation announced on the website.

A McDonnell Douglas MD-82 passenger plane carrying 130 people on board crashed while trying to land at the airport Sunday afternoon.

Flight OG 269 from Bangkok to Phuket, a well-known resort island, was carrying 123 passengers and seven crew members, said One-Two-Go Airlines to which the plane belonged.

Worapoj Ratasima, deputy governor of Phuket Province, said that the bodies of 83 people were recovered and the officers were trying to recover another five bodies from the debris.

Chaisak Angsuwan, director general of the Aviation Department, told local TV channel 3 that the two flight-data recorder boxes have been retrieved and will be sent to be decoded in the United States.

“We will send the boxes to the US as soon as possible and it may take at least seven days to decode,” he said.

However, Thai authorities said the initial cause of the accident might have come from the weather conditions because it was raining heavily at that time.

The plane skidded off the runway and crashed into the forest and burst into flames while attempting to land in heavy rain, according to media reports.

The pilot lost control of the plane, the reports said. The fire has been under control but the fuselage was badly damaged.

The budget airline said 78 of the passengers were foreigners and five were Thais. The six crew members were also Thais while the pilot who also died in the accident is Indonesian.

The foreigners include seven Britons, four Germans, three Dutch, three Irish, three Iranians, two Swedes, one Austrian, one Italian and one Australian, according to the Public Health Ministry.

According to the Japanese Embassy, the airline said there are no Japanese-sounding names on the list of the passengers. [Passage omitted]

Originally published by Kyodo News Service, Tokyo, in English 0242 17 Sep 07.

(c) 2007 BBC Monitoring Newsfile. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.