BANGKOK – A small passenger plane on a domestic flight in Thailand crashed Thursday afternoon shortly after takeoff from the capital’s main airport, killing all nine people on board, the country’s civil aviation authority has announced.
Rescue teams combing the difficult, swampy terrain in Chachoengsao province about 40 kilometers (25 miles) from Suvarnabhumi Airport found no survivors, with officials reporting only badly shattered body parts in the wreckage.
According to the provincial government spokesperson, the five passengers were Chinese tourists traveling on Chinese passports, not Hong Kong residents as initially reported. The two Thai crew members and the Thai pilot and co-pilot also perished in the crash.
The cause remains unknown, but the Civil Aviation Authority of Thailand said air traffic control lost radio and radar contact with the Cessna Caravan C208B turboprop plane operated by Thai Flying Service Company just 11 minutes after it had departed Suvarnabhumi Airport at 2:46 pm local time.
The aircraft was en route to the coastal province of Trat, approximately 275 kilometers (170 miles) southeast of Bangkok, when disaster struck.
Video footage from the scene showed highly fragmented pieces of the plane scattered through the water-logged mangrove swamp, with rescue workers wading through the murky conditions.
“Further searches are going slowly because it’s already dark and the rising tide has further flooded the crash site,” the provincial spokesperson said.
Authorities have not yet released the identities of those killed, but sources indicate the Chinese passengers included a 12-year-old girl, two women ages 43 and 45, and two teenagers.
The tragedy has cast a pall over Thailand’s domestic aviation industry, which has worked to rebuild public confidence after a 2015 downgrade by the International Civil Aviation Organization over safety concerns. Investigators will now work to determine what caused this latest deadly incident.