Debris from missing plane found in sea

Official refuses to give details of search finds after Myanmar military aircraft loses contact

DEBRIS has been found in the sea near where a Myanmar military plane went missing with more than 100 soldiers and their families on board yesterday, an official and air force source said.

Navy ships and aircraft had been searching since the afternoon when the plane lost contact with air traffic controllers.

Most of those on board were thought to be women and children, travelling from the southern city of Myeik to Yangon.

“Now they have found pieces of the damaged plane in the sea 136 miles [218km] away from Dawei city,” Myeik tourism official Naing Lin Zaw said. The search was ongoing. An air force source confirmed that a navy search and rescue ship had found debris in the sea an hour’s flight south of Yangon, Myanmar's commercial capital.

The commander in chief’s office said the plane lost contact at about 1.35pm (9.05am South African time) off Myanmar’s southern coast.

A spokesman for the military’s information team said two- thirds of the passengers were women and children.

“Some were on their way for medical checkups and to attend school,” the colonel in Naypyidaw said, refusing to confirm what rescuers had found.

Giving an updated figure, the commander in chief’s office said 106 passengers – soldiers and family members – were on board, along with 14 crew.

Several navy ships and air force planes were sent to search for the aircraft, which was flying at an altitude above 5 486m.

It is monsoon season in Myanmar but there were no reports of bad weather at the time the plane went missing.

The plane was a Y-8F-200 fourengine turboprop, a Chinesemade model still commonly used by Myanmar’s military for transporting cargo.

The former military junta bought many of the aircraft from Myanmar’s giant neighbour during their 50 years of isolated rule, when they were squeezed by Western sanctions.

A former executive at the aviation ministry said many of the aircraft in Myanmar’s fleet were old and decrepit.

“Myanmar air force has a very bad safety performance,” he said, asking to remain nameless.

However, the army said the missing plane was delivered in March last year and had logged 809 flying hours.

Soldiers guarding the military base at Yangon airport refused to speak to AFP journalists.

Myanmar’s military fleet has a chequered recent history of plane crashes.

A five-strong crew died when an air force plane burst into flames soon after taking off from the capital Naypyidaw in February last year.

Three army officers were killed in June when their Mi-2 helicopter crashed into a hillside and burst into flames in south-central Bago.

A surge in demand for air travel as Myanmar opens up has stretched the country’s aviation infrastructure.

Commercial jets have also suffered frequent incidents.

The worst in recent years was in 2012 when an Air Bagan jet crash-landed in thick fog and burst into flames short of the runway at Heho airport, killing one passenger and a motorcyclist on the ground.