Bodies of crash victims recovered

SAN HLAN, Myanmar — Fishermen joined navy and air force personnel Thursday in recovering bodies and aircraft parts from the sea off Myanmar, where a military plane carrying 122 people including 15 children crashed a day earlier, officials said.

The four-engine Chinesemade Y-8 turboprop aircraft had left Myeik, also known as Mergui, heading for Yangon on a route over the Andaman Sea. It was raining, but not heavily, at the time contact was lost with it at 1:35 p.m. Wednesday, when it was southwest of the city of Dawei, formerly known as Tavoy.

By nightfall Thursday, the bodies of 31 people — 21 women, eight children and two men — had been recovered, said military spokesman Gen. Myat Min Oo. All of the bodies were taken to a military hospital in Dawei, which was visited by some of the victims’ relatives.

One of them, Ma Mon, said her 32-year-old daughter Zin Wai Aung had been married to a military officer, but had gone on the flight without him.

“She went on the plane with her 3-month-old son. Both of them died,” she said. “That was my beautiful grandson.”

The bodies, pulled from the sea and taken aboard large fishing vessels and navy ships, had been transferred to smaller boats which transported them into shallow water on the beach at San Hlan village, where soldiers put the body bags on stretchers and carried them to waiting trucks.

The plane carried 108 passengers — mostly military personnel and their families — and 14 crew members, according to an announcement on the Facebook page of military Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing.