Laos news

The military helicopter that went missing 2 days ago in Laos have been found. The helicopter that had departed from Wattay international airport to Houaphan and Xieng Khuang provinces in northern Laos went missing after air traffic control room in Vientiane lost contact with the pilot at 1:30pm on Jul 27th.

                 

Read : Military Helicopter With 19 Passengers And 4 Crew Members Missing In Laos Airspace

The helicopter was found crashed at a remote area of Xaysomboun province’s Longchaeng district, an official with Division 703 of the Lao Air Force told RFA’s Lao Service.

Yes, [rescuers] found it, but the remains [of the passengers] have not been brought back yet as [they] have only located the crash site,” the official said, suggesting it was too difficult to access.
It’s in Longchaeng district, near Phalamua village. They sent the national defense force first, but had to deploy a military force to assist with the rescue operation.”

The local farmers had reported the crash after they said they heard a loud crash not long after the helicopter flew past. The officials have visited the site and reported that the helicopter had crashed, but did not give details of the 23 people aboard the helicopter.

The source also said that the extreme weather in the region were the potential cause of the accident, and also causing the delay in rescue operations, as other helicopters could not reach the crash site.

A senior official from the Ministry of Defense said one of the patients in the crash is a top ranking military patient.

The identities of the passengers on the ill fated helicopter is yet to be revealed.

 

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A Laos military helicopter heading for Houaphan province in northern Laos with 19 passengers onboard and 4 crew members has been missing in the past 36 hours after it departed an airport in the capital Vientiane, Laos.

The helicopter, the MI-17 helicopter, with registration number RDPL-34062 lost contact with air traffic controller 1:10pm local time on July 27th, after leaving the Wattay International airport for Houaphan district.

          

An official with Division 703 of the Lao Air Force told RFA’s Lao Service.

We cannot confirm whether the aircraft has crashed or had to execute an emergency landing, because we have no proof at this time, Higher level commanders will not allow us to confirm anything.

The identities of the passengers of the helicopter are not currently known.

The Laos aviation industry, which is been outdated aircraft is also known for attributing air disaster to pilots error, most times, the statement from state media always comes out with the disaster was the pilot error and not the outdated aircrafts.

Some major air disasters that had happened in 2 years are :

On May 17 last year, a Ukrainian-made Antonov AN-74TK-300 aircraft owned by the Lao military crashed while approaching an airport in Xiengkhuang, killing 17 passengers, including Lao Deputy Prime Minister Douangchay Phichit, Minister of Public Security Thongbanh Sengaphone, and two other high-ranking officials.

The group was en route to attend the 55th anniversary of “strategic gains” made by the Lao military during the Indochina War, according to state media.

The crash, which was attributed to a technical error by the pilot, is the second deadliest air disaster in Lao history, after the crash of Lao Airlines Flight 301 seven months earlier.

On Oct. 16, 2013, Flight 301—an ATR-72 turboprop—plunged into the Mekong River during bad weather as it approached Pakse Airport in southern Laos’s Champasak province, killing all 49 passengers.

Six Australians, seven French, five Thai, three South Koreans, two Vietnamese, as well as passengers from China, Myanmar, Taiwan and the U.S. were killed in the crash, which was also attributed to pilot error.

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