Cambodian plane crash wreckage found: Pilot

Phnom Penh, June 27: Searchers found the wreckage of a plane carrying 22 people, including 13 Koreans and three Czechs, near the ridge of a Cambodian mountain today, a search helicopter pilot said.

''We have located the crash site. It's high on the mountain'' in the southeastern coastal province of Kampot, pilot Tep Sitha told Reuters by mobile telephone from the air.

There was no immediate word on survivors, but the chances of finding anyone alive after more than 2,000 soldiers combed the Kom Chhaya mountains in bad weather for two days appeared remote.

''We're 100 per cent sure that the wreckage is that of the missing plane, but how it crashed will remain unknown until the black box has been analysed,'' civil aviation safety chief Keo Sivorn said.

The plane vanished from radar screens on Monday during a flight from Siem Reap, home to the famed 800-year-old Angkor Wat temple complex, to the coastal resort of Sihanoukville.

Also on board the plane operated by Phnom Penh-based carrier PMT Air were a Russian captain, two Cambodian co-pilots, a Cambodian engineer and two flight attendants.

The search, which Prime Minister Hun Sen supervised himself, was hampered by heavy rain which turned heavily forested mountains slippery and difficult to move through and limited visibility from helicopters.

Hun Sen offered a 5,000 dollars reward to anyone finding the wreckage.

Air services between Siem Reap and Sihanoukville reopened in January 2007 after a prolonged hiatus during Cambodia's civil war.

The resumption of the internal route was touted as another sign of the former French colony's accelerating recovery from the destruction wrought by Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge during their four years in power from 1975 to 1979.

Cambodia attracted more than 1.7 million tourists last year, most of them drawn to Angkor Wat.

Reuters
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