Low safety rating slapped on airline with bad record of fatal crashes Bad weather blamed: People arrive at the crash site of the ATR-72 turboprop plane. Laos plane crash: Sydney family among 49 killed The airline operating the plane that crashed into the Mekong River in southern Laos, killing 49 people including six Australians, had not undergone a safety audit, according to an airline safety ratings service. Geoffrey Thomas, founder of airlineratings.com, said he rated Lao Airlines as a "four out of seven star airline" before the crash because it had not participated in an audit conducted by the International Air Transport Association (IATA). The French-made ATR-72 twin-engine turboprop plane crashed near the southern city of Pakse as it came in to land after a 467-kilometre flight from the Lao capital Vientiane in extreme weather late on Wednesday. The main problem with the airline is that it has not taken part in an audit which is conducted by IATA. It's their operational and safety audit," Mr Thomas said. To join IATA ... the main body in aviation ... you actually have to pass this. Mr Thomas, whose Perth-based service rates 437 airlines for safety worldwide, said airlines that pass the audit have a 4.3 times better safety record than those that have not. He said that as a national flag carrier, Lao Airlines should also have submitted its operations for audit. "The reasons why Lao Airlines did not submit to audit may be because it didn't have the money or resources or believed it would not pass," he said. Mr Thomas downgraded the airline to three out of seven following the crash and said he would not fly with the airline "because it has not undergone the audit." Lao Airlines has had a chequered safety record since it was established as Lao Aviation in 1976. It has had three other fatal accidents in the past 20 years: eight people were killed in 2000, 26 people in 1998 and 18 in 1993. Since the 1990s the airline has been phasing out its ageing Russian and Chinese-built aircraft, replacing them with a modern European-built fleet, including two Airbus A320 aircraft. Lao Airlines has six of the ATR-72 turboprop planes that particularly suit the country's domestic routes across the mountainous country of 6 million people. It also flies to China, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. Laos' state-run newsagency has quoted witnesses as saying strong gusts of wind appeared to blow the crashed plane off course on Wednesday as it came into land at Pakse airport, a gateway for tourists in southern Laos. Laos' unsealed and pot-holed roads mean tourists are largely dependent on air travel. Lao Airlines carried about 900,000 passengers last year and was expecting to exceed one million this year, according to The Vientiane Times.