Austrian Airliner Blows Up Over Thailand; 223 Die : Disaster: The Vienna-bound jet crashes in a jungle soon after taking off from Bangkok. A police officer says he saw the Boeing 767-300 explode in a fireball.

An Austrian jetliner exploded shortly after takeoff from Bangkok airport Sunday night, scattering wreckage over a wide area of remote jungle. Police said that all 223 passengers and crew aboard were killed.

“There was a fireball in the sky and then a big boom,” said a Thai police officer who saw the explosion from his window.

The crash, the cause of which is yet to be explained, was the 12th worst in aviation history.

The Boeing 767-300 belonged to Austria’s Lauda Air, founded by former auto racing driver Niki Lauda to compete with the government-owned Austrian Airways.

“Sixteen minutes after takeoff, the plane just vanished from the radar screen,” said Prakob Na Songkhla, Lauda Air’s manager for Thailand. “We have no idea what happened (to cause the disaster).”

The flight originated in the British colony of Hong Kong on Sunday, then traveled to Thailand’s capital. It was on its final leg home to Vienna when the crash occurred near Thailand’s border with Myanmar (formerly Burma).

The plane carried 213 passengers and 10 crew members, according to Lauda Air. The pilot was an American, Thomas Welch, who lived in Vienna, airline officials said.

Police officials said the plane exploded in a huge fireball near Dan Chang police station, about 100 miles northwest of Bangkok. It was not immediately established whether the plane had initially caught fire or if there had been an explosion on board.

The Austrians maintain strict neutrality on most international disputes, such as the Persian Gulf War, thus making it unlikely that a politically motivated bombing caused the plane’s destruction.

But Lauda told Austrian radio that an anonymous caller had phoned the airline at Schwechat Airport in Vienna and warned that a bomb may have been placed on the aircraft by mistake. The caller said the bomb may have been intended for United Airlines.

In January, U.S. authorities had warned of possible terrorist attacks by Iraqi-sponsored groups on Western targets in Thailand.

No United plane was due to leave Bangkok until today. But a United flight left Hong Kong for Singapore on Sunday night at about the same time the Lauda plane was heading to Bangkok on its first leg.

The area of the crash is also close to contested zones along the Thai-Myanmar border where insurgent groups are fighting the Myanmar government. But none of the groups are thought to possess sophisticated ground-to-air missiles.

Wreckage from the plane was scattered over a wide area, making the task of recovering the bodies difficult. Some debris came down 20 miles from the nearest paved road.

Police early today reported recovering more than 60 bodies over an area of three-fifths of a square mile, according to the Associated Press. The dead included at least one child.

“The plane was flying normally for about 20 minutes,” Lauda told Austrian television Sunday night. “Then there was this catastrophe. We know nothing about the cause of the accident.”

Asked about the passenger list, Lauda said: “There were many Austrians on board.”

In Bangkok, Lauda’s Prakob said the airline was still assembling a passenger list. He said 125 passengers had boarded in Hong Kong. Among the 88 boarding the flight in Bangkok were 38 Thais, 34 Austrians, seven Swiss, four Germans, two Yugoslavs, and one each from Hungary, Britain and Australia, Prakob said.

The governor of Thailand’s northern Chiang Mai province, Pairat Decharin, was reported among the dead.

Police Sgt. Maj. Charan Palung, who said he saw the jet blow up, quoted other police officers at the crash site as saying that tattered clothing was seen hanging from trees, the Associated Press reported. Some reports said the wreckage was still burning when the first rescue teams arrived.

In Seattle, Boeing, maker of the jetliner, said the crash was the first involving a 767, a wide-body, long-haul aircraft introduced in 1982. The twin-engine planes cost $60 million each.

Boeing said it is sending a team of investigators to Thailand to look into the cause of the crash.

Lauda Air officials said the 767-300 was 18 months old. It was one of two of that type used by the airline on the route.

Thailand has become immensely popular as a tourist destination for European travelers. Lauda began his fledgling airline by flying charter flights to Bangkok and the southern resort of Phuket, finally establishing regularly scheduled service in 1988.