A Myanmar military flight has gone missing with 122 people on board, a military spokesman told CNN on Wednesday.
The flight vanished 29 minutes after taking off from the coastal town of Myeik, heading to Yangon part of a regularly scheduled military flight.
Of the 120 people on board, 106 were passengers and 14 crew, Capt. Myat Min Oo said.
Myanmar authorities lost contact with the plane at 1.35 pm local time, just under 30 minutes into the flight.
Nine Navy ships and three airplanes are searching for the plane in the Andaman Sea to the south of the capital, Yangon.
The aircraft was a Chinese-made Shaanxi Y8-200F four-turboprop plane.
Early reports say weather wasn’t to blame but given the season and satellite imagery CNN meteorologist Tom Sater says he wouldn’t rule out storms being the cause for the aircraft’s failure.
“This is the wet season and thunderstorms and showers do develop but nothing significant was noted at the time the plane went missing,” Sater said.
“If (the pilot) entered this region at 18,000 feet that aircraft is going to enter tropical rains so it could have been that there was a downburst or heavy rainfall.
“We know in the next 24-48 hours there will be more rain at the site that they have the six vessels, could see another 80-120 mm (3.1 – 4.7 in) of rainfall,” which would impede a search for the missing aircraft, he added.