Laos remembers air crash victims

Investigators believe they have found the black box from a plane that crashed in southern Laos. Source: AAP

LAOS has called for a minute of silence to pay tribute to the 49 people, including six Australians, who died last week in a plane crash into the Mekong River, state media say.

The government instructed state officials to arrange for the minute of silence at 2.15pm (1815 AEDT) on Monday, the Vientiane Times reported.

A separate ceremony will be held near the site of the crash in Pakse, Champasak province, to commemorate the dead, more than half of whom were foreign nationals.

Lao Airlines Flight QV301 from the capital Vientiane to the southern city of Pakse crashed on Wednesday after hitting turbulence.

As of Sunday, 43 bodies had been retrieved by Lao and Thai rescuers.

French air crash investigators are working at the crash zone along with a team from the aircraft manufacturers.

Navy divers from Thailand are also helping the search.

Yakua Lopangkao, director-general of Laos' Department of Civil Aviation, says investigators using sonar and other equipment picked up signals from underwater and have narrowed their search to the area "we believe might be the location of the black box".

"We can identify the general location of the plane, but have not yet been able to find it," he told the Vientiane Times.

"But the search teams still cannot retrieve it because the water was deep and muddy and the current was very strong," he said.

The aircraft's flight data recorder has not yet been found either.

The twin-engine turboprop ATR 72-600 had been delivered from the French-Italian aircraft maker in March.

Experts from ATR arrived in Laos over the weekend to assist with investigations into the crash.

There were 44 passengers aboard including 16 Lao, seven French nationals, six Australians, five Thais, three South Koreans, three Vietnamese, one American, one Chinese, one Canadian, one Malaysian national, and one person from Taiwan.

It was the worst crash for the national airline since 1999.

Anda sedang membaca artikel tentang

Laos remembers air crash victims

Dengan url

http://beritasementara.blogspot.com/2013/10/laos-remembers-air-crash-victims.html

Anda boleh menyebar luaskannya atau mengcopy paste-nya

Laos remembers air crash victims

namun jangan lupa untuk meletakkan link

Laos remembers air crash victims

sebagai sumbernya