By Nopporn Wong-Anan PHUKET, Thailand, Sept 18 (Reuters) - The Indonesian pilot of a budget airliner that crashed on the Thai resort island of Phuket, killing 89 people, tried to land despite being warned of windshear threats, a top Thai aviation official said on Tuesday. His comments came as religious leaders prayed at Phuket airport among the wreckage of the McDonnell Douglas MD-82, which veered off the runway in a fierce monsoon storm on Sunday, smashed into a wooded embankment and burst into flames. Two other pilots had reported dramatic changes in wind speed and direction as they landed minutes before the doomed One-Two-Go flight, Kamtorn Sirikorn, a senior executive at air traffic controller Aerothai, told Reuters. "The pilot definitely knew about the windshear because he was on the same radio frequency as the previous two planes," he said. "The control tower repeated the conditions to him and he acknowledged them just before the landing. The tape I listened to verified this," he said, referring to the communications between the control tower and the plane. The Indonesian flight captain and his Thai co-pilot were both killed, but 41 people survived a crash that has raised more safety questions about the budget carriers that have sprung up across Asia in the last decade. The flight data recorders from the American-built airliner were sent to the United States and could take two weeks to analyse, officials say. Most of the dead were foreign holidaymakers, who are so far known to include 18 Iranians -- including four children and two couples on their honeymoon -- five Americans, four Swedes, a French national, one Australian, one Briton and one Canadian. FORENSIC EXPERTS DUE Forensic experts from Israel, one of 20 countries that sent teams to Phuket to help identify victims of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, were due to arrive on Tuesday to help identify eight Israeli passengers who are feared dead. Australia, which played a key role in the effort to identify the 5,395 tsunami dead in Thailand, has also offered experts to work at the temporary morgue at Phuket airport. The identities of 32 Thais and 21 foreigners have been confirmed so far, but some relatives are frustrated at the slow pace of identifying the dead. "In Israel, when there is an accident, we work round the clock until the job is finished," Israeli rescue worker Dano Monkotowicz told Reuters. "There is no way the work has to stop because a doctor is sleeping. If one doctor is sleeping, another doctor will carry on until everything is finished," he said at the temporary morgue. A mile away, 12 Buddhist monks, seven Muslim clerics and one Catholic priest prayed among the wreckage, which was dragged km (1.25 miles) from the crash site and covered in camouflage netting. "We pray for all passengers, no matter what their religion," Catholic priest Peter Panya said. Autopsies on the 89 bodies were completed on Monday and investigators were collecting fingerprints, blood samples and X-raying teeth to help identify them all. Survivors spoke of torrential rain and trees bent over in the wind as the plane approached the "Pearl of the Andaman" isle, famed for its white-sand beaches, azure waters and nightlife. (Additional reporting by panarat Thepgumpanat in Bangkok)
