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KAMPOT, Cambodia: Search teams on Wednesday located the wreckage of a chartered tourist plane which went missing in southern Cambodia, officials said, adding that all 22 aboard were likely dead.
"We found the crashed plane ... on top of Bokor Mountain, but we cannot get there now," said Khov Khun Huor, deputy governor of Kampot province.
All 22 people on the aircraft – 13 South Koreans, three Czechs, a Russian pilot and five local crew – were feared dead.
"Maybe it was hard to survive," Khov Khun Huor said.
"Now we need to retrieve any survivors or corpses, if there are any."
A Cambodian helicopter pilot who was able to briefly land near the airplane told AFP all the passengers were dead.
The wreckage was discovered by a helicopter around 50 kilometres (30 miles) from its destination and is thought to have crashed into the mountain in bad weather.
Heavy fog since Monday has made air searches nearly impossible, while rains turned jungle trails into muddy rivulets, hampering the more than 1,000 police, soldiers and conservation workers who were scouring the remote area.
Khov Khun Huor said the plane had crashed in dense forest, and that a hole would have to be hacked out of the canopy of trees before rescuers could get equipment to the wreckage.
"We need to cut the trees before we can go in there to see," he said, adding that officials have urged nearby villagers to try and make their way to the crash site.
South Korean diplomats said on Tuesday they had identified all 13 Koreans on board, including two boys aged two and seven years. All had been part of a tour group, they said.
South Koreans made up the largest percentage of 1.7 million foreign visitors to Cambodia in 2006.
Dozens of Korean family members have been arriving in Cambodia since Tuesday night and were expected to hurry to this coastal town. Television reports showed groups of stricken relatives leaving the capital's airport on buses, surrounded by Korean press.
The crash is the first major air disaster to strike Cambodia in a decade, but highlights the country's need to bolster domestic air safety amid a rise in tourist arrivals.
The plane was operated by Progress Multi Transportation (PMT) Air, which runs mainly domestic flights. It has had at least three accidents or in-flight emergencies in the past two years, and was temporarily grounded at one point.
PMT opened a route between Siem Reap and Sihanoukville in January. It also flies between Siem Reap and Seoul, according to its website.
South Korea's ministry of construction and transportation has called for PMT's fleet to undergo safety checks.
Cambodian Tourism Minister Thong Khon said other foreign-owned airlines considering entering the market here "should be careful ... before they start flying in order to be as safe as possible".
Cambodia's last significant air accident occurred in 1997, when a Vietnam Airlines flight from Ho Chi Minh City to Phnom Penh crashed in heavy monsoon rain as it attempted to land at the capital's international airport.
Sixty-four people were killed in that crash. Only two infants, a Thai boy and a Vietnamese boy, survived.
- AFP/so
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