Myanmar finds bodies and plane debris at sea

Myanmar's military says rescuers have found bodies and debris from the missing military plane.

A Y-8 aircraft of the Myanmar military. Photo: Wikipedia.

"We found the plane and some bodies at 8:25 this morning," AFP quoted a Myanmar military spokesman as saying.

According to a statement from the Myanmar military, a navy ship found three bodies, including two adults and a child, about 35 kilometers from the town of Launglon, southern Myanmar. They also found a wheel suspected to be from a Chinese-made Y-8F-200 transport aircraft.

The Myanmar Y-8F-200 transport aircraft went missing yesterday while flying from the northern coastal town of Myeik to Yangon city. It lost contact 29 minutes after takeoff, when it was at an altitude of more than 5,480 meters, about 70 kilometers west of the town of Dawei.

According to the Myanmar military, the crashed plane was carrying a total of 122 people. More than half of the passengers were soldiers' families, including 15 children, 35 soldiers and 14 crew members.

The captain was identified as Lieutenant Colonel Nyein Chan, with more than 3,000 flight hours. The aircraft was purchased by Myanmar in March 2016 and had flown a total of 809 hours.

Myanmar has deployed nine naval vessels, five military aircraft and three helicopters to search for the missing plane. Myanmar is in its rainy season but there appears to have been no bad weather at the time the plane went missing.

The black circle shows the location where the plane lost contact with the ground. Graphic: CNA

According to VNE