22 Feared Dead in Plane Crash

VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh & Washington
25/06/2007

Cambodian aviation officials said late Monday they feared a chartered plane carrying at least 22 people crashed Monday in the mountains near Sihanoukville.

No information on casualties was immediately available, but authorities said a Russian-made AN-24 carrying passengers from Siem Reap to the coastal town disappeared from radar near Kom Chhay Mountain.

In Chiva, a provincial police chief, told the Associated Press that conservation workers on a nearby mountain reported seeing a plane crash.

Authorities suspect the plane crashed, killing all aboard.

The National Committee for Disaster Management was directing a search and rescue operation late Monday, but officials declined to elaborate.

A military commander in Kampot province initially tried to dispatch a unit of parachutists to the area, but poor weather prevented such a search, aviation authorities told VOA Khmer.

On board were five Cambodians, 13 South Koreans, three Czechs and a Russian.

Sihanoukville's airport opened in January, hoping to lure tourists from Siem Reap and Angkor Wat to Cambodia's beaches.

Over 20 dead in Cambodia air crash

Passengers leave a PMT Air Russian-made AN-24 at the Rattanakiri, Cambodia, airport on Jan. 20, 2007. Officials say a chartered plane from the airline has crashed in Cambodia with at least 20 on board feared dead. (AP Photo)

Mon, 25 Jun 2007
Suy Se
AFP

A charter plane carrying 22 people between two popular Cambodian tourist destinations crashed on Monday in a mountainous region in the south of the country, aviation officials said.

The Russian-made AN-24 left the Angkor temple town of Siem Reap at around 10am (0300 GMT) and vanished off radar screens 37 minutes later, said Keo Sivorn, director of operations at the Cambodian Aviation Secretariat.

It was headed for the southern seaside resort town of Sihanoukville, about 250 kilometres from the capital Phnom Penh, he said.

The secretariat's chief of staff, Him Sarun, said the plane was carrying 13 South Koreans, three Czech nationals and a Russian pilot, along with five Cambodian crew.

"The plane has crashed between Bokor Mountain and Kamchay Mountain," he told AFP.

"We don't know how many are dead or how many survived."

Military officials told AFP that villagers described a plane crashing into a mountain and bursting into flames. Few other details are known.

Kampot province deputy police chief In Chiva said the wreck was believed to be near Kamchay Mountain, as conservationists working there told police they had seen the aircraft crash.

"The area is heavily forested and the sky is dark (with rain) so it is hard for us to search. We have not found any pieces of the plane yet," he told AFP.

"We have been informed that the plane crashed there but we are not sure."

As the weather worsened and night fell, military officials called back two helicopters that were looking for the crash site.

But rescuers, including soldiers and police continued searching deep forests into the evening, using scooters to travel along dark jungle paths near where the plane is thought to have gone down.

The plane was operated by PMT Air, which runs flights between Phnom Penh and some provincial capitals, but has had at least three accidents or in-flight emergencies over the past two years.

In one, engine failure forced a plane to turn back mid-flight, while another plane ran off the runway as it landed because it was overloaded with passengers, officials said at the time.

PMT opened a route between Siem Reap and Sihanoukville in January, aviation officials said, in a bid to encourage more tourist traffic between the two cities.

"We cannot find the plane right now, so we cannot say anything," said a PMT official who did not want to be named.

South Korea's foreign ministry said it had identified all 13 South Koreans, according to the Yonhap news agency.

"The 13 South Koreans are seen as tourists recruited by a tour agency," a ministry official said, adding that two children and two teenagers were on board the doomed plane.

The ministry said it dispatched three diplomats in Cambodia to the suspected crash site. It also said it would soon send a six-member fact-finding mission to Cambodia.

South Koreans made up the largest percentage of the 1.7 million foreign visitors to Cambodia in 2006.

Cambodia's last major air disaster occurred 10 years ago, when a Vietnam Airlines flight from Ho Chi Minh City to Phnom Penh crashed in heavy monsoon rain as it attempted to land at the capital's international airport.

Sixty-four people were killed in the crash. Only two infants, a Thai boy and a Vietnamese boy, survived.