Military plane carrying more than 100 people crashes in Myanmar

A plane carrying more than 100 people, mostly relatives of Myanmar soldiers, crashed after takeoff in the south of the country.

A Y-8 aircraft of the Myanmar Air Force. Photo: Wiki

The transport planeY-8-200FThe Chinese-made plane departed from the coastal town of Myeik, southern Myanmar, at 13:06 (13:36 Hanoi time) bound for Yangon, the country's largest city. However, it lost contact with the ground while flying over the Andaman Sea, at a point 70 km west of the town of Dawei, according toReuters.

"The total number of people on the military plane was 105. We received this information from the plane before departure," said Kyaw Kyaw Htey, a civil aviation official at Myeik airport.The NYTimes reported that most of the people on the plane were relatives of Myanmar soldiers.

The Myanmar military has dispatched a navy ship and two aircraft to search for the missing plane.They found the wreckage of the damaged plane in the sea, 218 kilometers from Dawei," Naing Lin Zaw, a tourism official in Myeik city, told AFP, adding that the navy was still searching the sea.

An unnamed air force source confirmed a search and rescue vessel had spotted debris from the plane.

The Y-8 is a medium-sized, medium-range transport aircraft manufactured by Shaanxi Aircraft Corporation in China, based on the Soviet Antonov An-12.

It has become one of China's most popular military and civilian transport aircraft, with Beijing exporting the aircraft to Myanmar, Sudan and Sri Lanka.

Plane missing near Dawei. Graphic: asiapearltravels

According to VNE