Exasperated officials in Laos said today they lack the equipment and manpower to locate the fuselage and more than 30 bodies still unaccounted for two days after a plane crashed and disappeared into the Mekong River.
International experts were arriving later in the day from France, Singapore and Thailand to help with forensics and locating the flight data recorder, which could help explain why the virtually new Lao Airlines ATR-72 turboprop crashed.
Lao Airlines flight QV301 crashed Wednesday as it prepared to land in stormy weather at Pakse Airport in southern Laos.
All 49 people on board, more than half of whom were foreigners, are presumed dead.
As of today morning only 17 bodies had been found, said Lao Transport Minister Sommad Pholsena. Relatives of a Chinese victim identified the body today, marking the first identification of a body since the crash.
"It's very difficult to find (bodies) under water," the openly frustrated transport minister told reporters at the crash site, where the rescue operation awaited the arrival of more help. "If we could find (the plane), we would have found it already."
Thailand, which lost five nationals in the crash, is deeply involved in the search, providing skilled manpower that its poorer neighbor lacks.
Thai Tranpsport Minister Chadchart Sittipunt said the Thai Navy initially sent scuba divers but their work was complicated by strong currents, deep water of up to 10 metres (32 feet) and poor visibility in the muddy river.
He said a Thai forensics team was due to arrive later today to help identify bodies as well as Thai Navy trawlers to sweep the river with nets to try to locate the fuselage.
"We think the plane broke into two pieces. The tail of the plane contains the black box," Chadchart said in a telephone interview after meeting with his Lao counterpart in Pakse. "It is believed that many bodies of the passengers are still stuck in the plane, or else they would have surfaced on the river."
He said a team of Singaporean experts was flying in today with equipment that can help locate the so-called "black box," or flight data recorder that stores technical data from the flight and records pilot conversations.
France's accident investigation agency said in a statement that it was sending four investigators to help Laos with the probe into the cause of the crash. The statement said the team would work with technical advisers from ATR, the French-Italian manufacturer of the aircraft, which has said it delivered the plane to Lao Airlines in March.
Lao Airlines has said the plane ran into extremely bad weather as it prepared to land at Pakse Airport. No further details on the investigation or circumstances of the crash have been released. The crash occurred about 7 kilometres (4 miles) from the airport.
