Lao Airlines pilot told to change course before crash Debris retrieved from Laos crash RAW VISION: bags, passports and a broken propeller are among the wreckage scattered along the Mekong riverbank. PT0M42S http://www.smh.com.au/action/externalEmbeddedPlayer?id=d-2vqee 620 349 October 18, 2013 - 7:20AM A Lao Airlines pilot was told to change course shortly before his turbo-prop plane slammed into the murky Mekong River in southern Laos, killing all 49 people on board, including six Australians. The control tower at the Pakse airport had issued the instruction to 56-year-old Cambodian-born pilot Young San as the plane was approaching to land in extreme weather, officials say. "During strong winds, the air controller told [Young San] to change course," said Cambodia's State Secretariat of Civil Aviation Mak Sam Ol, who has been briefed on the cause of the crash by Lao authorities. "He followed instructions but the plane faced strong winds and it couldn't get through," Mr Mak Sam Ol told the Phnom Penh Post. Young San, who had more than 30 years flying experience, had worked for the airline for almost three years. He was a former pilot with Cambodia's defunct state carrier Royal Air Cambodge after having trained in Russia and later France. Lao officials and airline engineers are investigating the cause of the crash of the French-made ATR-72 twin propeller aircraft that left deep skid marks before careering into the river on Wednesday and disappearing. "The plane appears to have crashed very hard," said Yakao Lopangkao, director-general of Lao's Department of Civil Aviation, who was at the site of the crash six kilometres from Pakse airport. The river's strong current following days of torrential rain is hampering efforts to recover the bodies, and the plane's fuselage has not yet been found. Several bodies have been found floating up to 20 kilometres downstream, while more than half remained unrecovered early on Friday. "We have asked villagers and people who live along the river to look for bodies and alert authorities when they see anything," Mr Yakao said. It is uncertain whether any of the bodies of the Australians have been recovered. While several Lao officials have said they believe bad weather caused the crash, representatives from the plane's manufacturer ATR, a joint venture between Airbus maker European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co and the Alena Aermacchi company, have joined the investigation into the cause. The ATR-72 has been involved in 16 crashes since it went into service in 1988, including one that killed 68 people in Cuba in 2010. The plane that crashed was delivered to Laos in March. Lao Airlines had not submitted the airline to a safety audit by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) and was rated a "four out of seven star airline" before the crash by the Perth-based airline ratings service airlineratings.com. Among those killed in the crash were Gavin Rhodes, 39, his wife Phoumalaysy (Lea) Rhodes, 35, and their children Manfred, 17 months, and Jadesuda, three, from Sydney's western suburbs. They were holidaying in Laos. Also killed were Michael Creighton, 41, an Australian aid worker based in Laos, and his father Gordon, a retired school teacher from Glen Innes, NSW.