Myanmar Airplane Crashed in Laos

[RANGOONP@xxxxxxx]

Myanmar government reports crash of passenger plane in Laos
Thu 27 Aug 98 - 11:09 GMT
BANGKOK, Aug 27 (AFP) - A Fokker F-27 plane has crashed into a mountain in
Laos, the
country's military rulers said Thursday, amid confusion about the fate of a
missing Air Myanmar
plane with 39 people on board.
"Government officials from Laos informed the Myanmar government that a F-27
aircraft
crashed in north of Laos on the Payakha mountain. The fate of the passengers
are still to be
confirmed," a statement from the junta received here said.
It was not immediately clear if the statement referred to the missing Air
Myanmar Fokker F-27
which disappeared on Monday morning on a routine domestic flight.
On Tuesday, Air Myanmar officials in Yangon told AFP the missing plane had
made an
emergency landing in Laos and everyone on board was safe.
An Air Myanmar spokesman and Thai military sources along the Myanmar border
said
Thursday that as far as they knew, the aircraft had landed in Laos.
They said the passengers were safe but could not explain where they were or
when they would
be returning to Myanmar.
But a spokesman at Myanmar's embassy in Bangkok said: "We have no confirmation
of
anything yet. The plane is still missing and we are still searching."
Government officials in either country could not be immediately contacted.
The plane went missing after being diverted from its course for Tachilek in
Myanmar's sparsely
populated eastern Shan State due to bad weather. It apparently flew off-course
after being
ordered to land instead in the Myanmar town of Heho or the northern Thai city
of Chiang Mai.
A ground and air search was launched involving Thai and Myanmar soldiers after
the plane
failed to arrive.