Searchers in fishing boats have pulled bodies from the muddy Mekong River as officials in Laos ruled out finding survivors from a plane crash that killed 49 people, including six Australians.
Backpacks, two broken propellers and passports were among the debris scattered on the riverbank where the Lao Airlines turboprop plane left deep skid marks in the ground before disappearing into the water during stormy weather on Wednesday.
Thai Foreign Ministry spokesman Sek Wannamethee said search teams had recovered the bodies of 15 crash victims by the time operations ended on Thursday because of darkness and the strong current.
Among the six Australians on board was a family of four on a three-week holiday.
They were Sydney tax agent Gavin Rhodes, 39, his wife Phoumalaysy (Lea) Rhodes, 35, their three-year-old daughter Jadesuda and 17-month-old son Manfred.
The other two Australians were a father and son - Michael Creighton, a 42-year-old aid worker and bomb disposal expert based in Laos, and his father, Gordon Creighton, 71, a retired teacher who was visiting his son.
"We have lost a father, a husband, a son, a brother, a fiance and a best mate in one tragic circumstance and we are trying to come to terms with our loss," the family said in a statement.
As of late Thursday, contacts close to the investigation said none of the bodies of the six Australians had been recovered.
Yakao Lopangkao, director-general of Lao's Department of Civil Aviation, who was at the crash site in Pakse in southern Laos, ruled out finding survivors.
"There is no hope," he said. "The plane appears to have crashed very hard before entering the water."
He said the plane's fuselage had not yet been found, but was underwater and divers were trying to locate it.
Some of the bodies were found by fishermen floating downstream as far as 20km from the crash site, he said.
"We have asked villagers and people who live along the river to look for bodies and alert authorities when they see anything," he said.
Fleets of small boats and inflatable rafts plied the muddy, vast waterway as part of the search, with men in life vests peering into the water.
State-run Lao Airlines released a second updated list of the 44 passengers' nationalities on Thursday. It said the flight included 16 Lao nationals, seven French, six Australians, five Thais, three Koreans, three Vietnamese and one person each from China, Malaysia, Taiwan and the United States. A person who had been listed as a Canadian was instead added to the list of Vietnamese.
The passengers included foreign tourists and expatriates working in Laos.
The area where the plane crashed is off the main tourist circuit in Laos but known for its remote Buddhist temples, nature treks and waterfalls.
Cambodian authorities said one of the plane's pilots was a 56-year-old Cambodian with more than 30 years' flying experience.
Details of the crash remained murky. Lao Airlines said in a statement on Wednesday that the plane took off from the capital, Vientiane, and "ran into extreme bad weather conditions" as it prepared to land at Pakse Airport before crashing about 7km away.
The airline said it had yet to determine the cause of the crash of the ATR-72 aircraft, which had been delivered in March.
French-Italian aircraft manufacturer ATR said in a statement that "the circumstances of the accident are still being determined." It said that it would assist in the investigation, which will be led by Lao authorities.
It was the first fatal crash for Laos' state carrier since 2000, when two separate crashes left 23 people dead.
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