The Myanmar military on Thursday said that it has found several bodies of passengers and the wreckage of the missing Y-8-200 F military aircraft in the Andaman Sea. The plane went off radar between Myeik and Yangon on Wednesday with 122 people, including children, on board.
"We have found the plane and some dead bodies this morning about 8.25 am (0155 GMT)," a spokesman from the military's information team told AFP. The wreckage was found in sea off the coastal town of Dawei, located southeast of Yangon.
Over half the passengers on board the crashed plane were from military families. The army chief's office released a statement saying that the passengers included 15 children, 35 soldiers and 14 crew members.
"Some were on their way for medical checkups and to attend school," a spokesman from the army's information team said. Myanmar's commander-in-chief confirmed on Facebook that a search team of the country's navy found the wreckage of the plane off the Launglon coast in southern Myanmar on Thursday morning.
A major search and rescue operation was launched to locate the plane, which was flying 20 miles west of Dawei over the Andaman Sea when it went off radar. Nine navy ships and three air force planes were dispatched to search for the missing aircraft after it went missing on Wednesday.
"Communication was lost suddenly at about 1:35pm (3.05pm Singapore) when it reached about 20 miles (32km) west of Dawei town," the commander-in-chief's office had said in a statement on Wednesday. The plane lost contact with the air traffic control half an hour after take-off.
Lieutenant Colonel Nyein Chan, who has 3,000 hours of flying experience, was the captain of the missing plane.The aircraft was purchased in March 2016 and had been flown for a total of 809 hours.
