The airline operating the plane that crashed into the Mekong River in southern Laos killing all those on board including an Australian family had not undergone a safety audit, an airline ratings service says.
The Lao Airlines flight crashed on Wednesday, apparently killing at least 44 people, including passengers from 11 countries, the Lao government says.
The Australian victims are from two families - a tax consultant from Sydney, his wife and their son and daughter, as well as an aid worker and his son.
Geoffrey Thomas, from airlineratings.com, says he rated Lao Airlines as a "four out of seven star airline" because it hadn't participated in an international safety audit.
"The major problem with the airline is that it has not taken part in an audit which is conducted by The International Air Transport Association (IATA), it's their operational and safety audit," he told Melbourne radio station 3AW.
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"To join IATA, which is the main body in aviation today, you have to actually pass this."
He says airlines that have passed the audit have a "4.3 times better safety record than airlines that have not".
"So it's a major audit of the airline's whole systems top to tail," Mr Thomas added.
He says in this case it appears as though the pilots "have just flown into a severe rainstorm associated with a tropical cyclone".
The Department of Foreign Affairs in Canberra has confirmed six Australians were aboard the flight that came down 8km from Pakse.
A DFAT spokesman says the Australian embassy has been told not to expect any survivors.
Lao officials say 44 passengers and five crew members were aboard flight QV301 from the Lao capital to Pakse.
The airline flies an ATR-72 twin-engine turboprop plane on the 467km route.
An unconfirmed passenger list suggests that more than half of the people aboard were foreign nationals.
