Six Australians are thought to be among the 49 people killed in Laos air crash...!

Six Australians are thought to be among the 49 people killed after an aircraft crashed into the Mekong river in Laos. Lao Airlines flight QV301 departing from the Laotian capital Vientiane, crashed on Wednesday afternoon while preparing to land at an airport in the southern city of Pakse.


The ABC reported that the Australian victims were two families: a tax consultant from Sydney, his wife, son and daughter, and an aid worker and his son.

The Laotian ministry of public works and transport said in a statement that the aircraft had run into “extreme bad weather conditions” on approach.

44 passengers and five crew members were aboard the flight. According to a passenger manifest seen by the Associated Press, this included five Australians, 17 Laotians, five Thais and a number of other passengers from Korea, Vietnam, Canada, China, Malaysia, Taiwan and the US.

The Australian Department for Foreign Affairs and Trade said in a statement it understood that six Australians were among the dead.

“Australian consular officials are in contact with the families of those thought to be on the flight,” a spokesman said.

Thai television showed a photograph of the ATR 72 turboprop plane partly submerged in shallow water on a stretch of the Mekong, the tail severed. Another television channel showed what appeared to be several bodies on the bank of the river.

The aircraft's maker, ATR, issued a statement from its headquarters in Toulouse, France, declaring that it would provide full assistance under international aviation rules to the investigation of the crash, working with the French safety investigation body. It said the Lao Airlines plane had been delivered from the production line in March this year.

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