Mae Hong Son: Plane crash. Injured trooper rushed to hospital, bodies retrieved.

Rescuers have rushed an injured Army trooper to hospital and retrieved three bodies after an Army Cessna 182 light aeroplane crashed in Mae Hong Son province near the Myanmar border on Thursday.

A rescue team from the 17th Infantry Regiment, local defence volunteers from Ban Huay Pheung village, the Mae Hong Song Disaster Mitigation Office as well as a medical team from the Mae Hong Son Hospital reached the crash site in a remote area in Mae Hong Son four kilometres inside the border at 10pm.

The rescuers found a seriously injured passenger, who was able to talk, but the other passenger and the two pilots were dead.

Sgt-Major 1st Class Chatchanan Kheunkaew, a logistic troopers from the 17th Infantry Regiment, suffered burns to 60 per cent of his body.

The rescue team rushed him to Mae Hong Son Hospital.

The two pilots – Lieutenant Nareupol Pookthong and Lieutenant Wiroj Taengkratok – and the other passenger, Lieutenant Khemarat Doungkaew, were dead.

Before the rescue team was sent it, an Army helicopter was dispatched to search for the six-seater plane at 4.50pm after it disappeared from radar around 11am in the Thai-Myanmar border area of the province’s Pang Mapha district.

The helicopter spotted the crashed aeroplane in a mountainous area near Ban Huai Sai Khao in Tambon Huai Pha of Muang district at about 5pm.

STORY: The Nation