Search for missing Myanmar plane finds debris
Print Edition
PIECES of a Myanmar military plane which went missing with more than 100 soldiers and family members aboard were found in the Andaman Sea late yesterday.
Navy ships and aircraft had been searching since the afternoon when the plane lost contact with air traffic controllers.
Most of those on board were thought to be women and children who were traveling from the southern city of Myeik to Yangon.
“Now they have found pieces of the damaged plane in the sea 218 kilometers away from Dawei city,” said Naing Lin Zaw, a tourism official in Myeik, adding that the navy was still searching the sea.
An air force source confirmed that a navy search and rescue ship had found pieces of the plane in the sea an hour’s flight south of Yangon, Myanmar’s commercial capital.
The commander-in-chief’s office said the plane lost contact at about 1:35pm off Myanmar’s southern coast. The office said 106 passengers were on board — soldiers and family members — along with 14 crew.
A spokesman from the military’s information team said two-thirds of passengers on board were women and children.
“Some were on their way for medical checkups and to attend school,” the colonel in Naypyidaw said, refusing to confirm what rescuers had found and adding the search was ongoing.
Four naval ships and two air force planes were sent to search for the plane, which was flying at an altitude of more than 18,000 feet (5,486 meters).
It is monsoon season in Myanmar but there were no reports of bad weather at the time the plane went missing.
The plane was a Y-8F-200 four-engine turboprop, a Chinese-made model still commonly used by Myanmar’s military for transporting cargo.
The army said it was delivered in March last year and had logged 809 flying hours.
The former military government bought many of the aircraft from Myanmar’s neighbor during their 50 years of isolated rule, when they were squeezed by Western sanctions.
A former executive at the aviation ministry said many of the aircraft in Myanmar’s fleet were old and decrepit.
“Myanmar air force has very bad safety performance,” he said, asking to remain anonymous.
Myanmar’s military fleet has a checkered history.
All five crew died when an air force plane burst into flames soon after taking off from the capital Naypyidaw in February last year.
Three army officers were killed in June last year when their Mi-2 helicopter crashed into a hillside and burst into flames in south-central Bago.
A surge in demand for air travel as Myanmar opens up has stretched the country’s aviation infrastructure.
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