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PHUKET, Thailand : A Thai passenger plane crashed and burst into flames as it landed in driving rain on the resort island of Phuket, killing 87 people including foreigners, officials said.
A senior civil aviation official said the pilot of the MD-82, operated by budget carrier One-Two-Go and carrying 123 passengers and seven crew, had received permission to abort the landing at the last minute.
Instead the plane smashed onto the runway, careered into an embankment and broke in two, witnesses and officials reported.
"The plane just dropped really fast and then jerked back up. The right wing hit a tree and then the plane hit the ground," said 23-year-old survivor Parinyawich Chusaeng.
"The people all around me were burning. Some on the floor and some standing, and they were on fire," he told AFP.
Marine Keisel, from Paris, watched the disaster unfold from a following plane.
"When the plane landed it caught fire," she told AFP at Phuket airport. "we could see the fire coming out of it. It was chaos inside my plane."
Television images showed the blackened, smouldering jet lying on grass off the runway by a fence and close to trees. Officials and rescuers could be seen carrying bodies covered with blankets from the wreckage in the pouring rain.
Health Minister Mongkol Na Songkhla said in a statement that 87 people had died and 43 survived, accounting for all those on board. Initial reports had put the total on board at 128.
Officials believe 15 survivors were Thai and 28 were foreign but were still verifying the identities of the dead and injured. Deputy transport minister Sansern Wongcha-um earlier said there were at least 70 foreigners on board.
Authorities in Paris said one French national was confirmed dead, while British passengers were also reported to be among the fatalities.
British passengers were among the fatalities, according to a Thai official quoted by Sky News.
"Some victims died of fire, some were thrown out of the airplane," deputy provincial governor Vorapot Ratsima told AFP.
Five people were in critical condition at the Bangkok Hospital Phuket, where 30 survivors had been admitted to stay overnight, hospital director Kongkiat Kespechai said.
Among those being treated were citizens of Thailand, Germany, Austria, Britain, Australia, Ireland and Iran.
Other hospitals on Phuket, Thailand's largest island and a hugely popular resort destination, said they were treating people from the Netherlands, Sweden and Italy.
"There are bodies piled up inside the smouldering wreckage," Vorapot told Channel 11 television earlier. "What we have to do is to identify and return dead bodies to their relatives."
The health ministry said bodies had been laid out at Phuket airport terminal due to a lack of hospital refrigerators.
"There is a problem as we are lacking refrigerators at the hospitals to put the dead bodies in ... all the dead bodies have been laid in the auditorium room at the Phuket airport terminal," the ministry said.
The plane had flown in from the capital Bangkok in mid-afternoon in heavy rain and low visibility.
"The pilot asked to go around," Chaisak Angkasuwan, director general of the country's air transport authority, told TiTV television.
"The control tower allowed it but the aircraft fell to the runway and the body broke."
Another official said the aircraft had slid off the runway in the rain and slammed into the embankment.
Later, air transport chief Chaisak said a committee would investigate the crash using black box and control tower records.
"When it landed, the visibility was not good, with heavy rain and strong winds. But there is no report that the plane had engine problems," he said.
Authorities closed the airport, stranding hundreds of locals and tourists. Airline officials were visibly overwhelmed, and relatives were clamouring for information.
At Bangkok's Don Mueang airport, where the jet had taken off, an information centre was set up for anguished relatives.
"My relative was on the plane," Yongchan Phasriwong said, his wife in tears beside him.
"The airline tells us nothing. They do not have information for us. I hope he will make it."
One-Two-Go expressed "deep regret," according to a statement from Airports of Thailand, which runs Phuket airport.
The One-Two-Go website bills the carrier, founded in 2003 and a subsidiary of Orient Thai, as Thailand's first budget passenger airline. - AFP/ac/de
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