Bangkok: A Lao Airlines plane has crashed into the Mekong River in southern Laos with 49 people on board.
An airline official told the Bangkok Post that the plane crashed into the river near Pakse as it was coming into land at the airport.
Thai television showed a photograph of the ATR 72 turboprop plane partly submerged in shallow water on a stretch of the Mekong, the tail severed.
Another television channel showed what appeared to be several bodies on the bank of the river.
Lao Airlines is the national carrier of the communist state and has operated since 1976. Its aircraft carried 658,000 passengers last year and it has a fleet of just 14 planes, mostly propeller-driven.
It operates on seven domestic routes and has international flights to China, Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam and Singapore.
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