Myanmar plane: Debris and bodies found in Andaman sea

The plane had lost contact with the radar about 20 miles west of Dawei town, reports quoted a military official as saying. It lost contact around 7:05 GMT.

Myanmar's military on Thursday said it has found the wreckage of a plane and some dead bodies in the Andaman Sea. The plane went missing with around 120 people on board as it flew from the southern city of Myeik to Yangon.

"We have found the plane and some dead bodies this morning about 8.25 AM (0725 IST)," a spokesman from the military's information team told AFP.

The country's Commander in Chief confirmed in a Facebook post that the wreckage had been found off the coast of Launglon, in southern Myanmar, by a Navy search team this morning.

Nine navy ships and three air force planes had been dispatched to search for the aircraft, which disappeared yesterday.

The plane had lost contact with the radar about 20 miles west of Dawei town, reports quoted a military official as saying. It lost contact around 7:05 GMT.

More than half of the passengers were from military families, including 15 children, along with 35 soldiers and 14 crew members, the army chief's office said in a statement.

It is monsoon season in Myanmar but there were no reports of stormy weather in the area at the time. Sources told AFP that debris had been found in the sea off the coastal town of Dawei, which lies an hour's flight southeast of Yangon.

In 2014, Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 disappeared on March 8, 2014, while flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. The aircraft, a Boeing 777-200ER operated by Malaysia Airlines, last made voice contact with air traffic control when it was over the South China Sea, less than an hour after takeoff.

In 2016, an unidentified plane was thought to have plunged into the ocean close to Myanmar. The search for that plane was later called-off after the aviation department did not receive any reports of missing aircraft from airlines operating in Myanmar airspace.

(With agency inputs)

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