All 44 passengers and five crew died when the Lao Airlines flight plunged into the river as it tried to land at Pakse International Airport yesterday afternoon.
The twin-engine turbo plane was on a domestic flight from the capital Vientiane to the airport in the Champasak province in southern Laos.
State-owned Lao Airlines issued a statement via its Facebook page saying the plane ran into "extreme bad weather conditions" and crashed at 4:00pm (local time).
Pictures on Thai television showed a small plane, half submerged in the river, with what appeared to be bodies lying on the banks.
Thai foreign ministry spokesman Sek Wannamethee said: "I can now confirm, according to our reports, that all 44 people on board have died, including five Thai".
Also understood to be among the dead are five Laos, three South Koreans, seven French, one American, one Chinese, one Taiwanese, one Canadian and two Vietnamese.
Photo: Lao Airlines operates several twin engine planes in its fleet. (Supplied) The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has not yet confirmed the reports that five Australians were aboard the flight.
French foreign minister Laurent Fabius said he had learned of the deaths with "deep shock and great sadness" and that France was rushing embassy officials to the site of the crash.
A statement from the airline said rescue units had been sent to the scene in the hope of finding survivors and it would be informing relatives of the passengers.
It said it was investigating the cause of the crash.
The QV301 flight set off from Vientiane on time at 2:45pm (local time) and was supposed to arrive in Paske just over an hour later, but crashed as it prepared to land.
A spokesman from aircraft manufacturer ATR, in France, said the flight was one of its twin-engine turboprop ATR-72 planes, of which the airline has a fleet of six.
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