Myanmar Says Aircraft Hits Lao Mountainside By Aung Hla Tun YANGON (Reuters) - A Myanmar Airways Fokker F-27 turboprop reported missing four days ago crashed in northern Laos, but the fate of the passengers and crew was unknown, a spokesman for the Myanmar government said Thursday. Officials in neighboring Laos told the Myanmar government the aircraft, which had been on a domestic flight, crashed on Payakha mountain in the north of the country, he said. "The fate of the passengers has still to be confirmed," the spokesman said. "All the passengers are from Myanmar. There are no foreigners involved." It was the second crash of a Myanmar Airways F-27 this year. A Transport Ministry official said Monday the plane had carried about 39 passengers, although local press reports have said only that more than 20 passengers were aboard. There has been no word on how many crew were on board, but one airline official said earlier that the F-27 normally had four. An official of Myanmar Airways International in Bangkok said most of those on the plane were Myanmar military personnel. The airline has not provided a manifest to journalists. Flight UB635 had been on a regular two-hour flight from Yangon to Myanmar's eastern border town of Tachilek, where it had been due to land at 0200 GMT Monday. Yangon's Ministry of Information said Monday the Fokker had been unable to land at Tachilek due to poor weather and had flown on to Heho in southeast Myanmar but then lost contact with ground control. Tin Hlaing Hmee, the managing director of Myanmar Airways, said an official of the airline who said Tuesday that the plane had landed safely in Laos had not been authorised to speak about the issue. Earlier, state radio said Myanmar conducted an air and ground search in cooperation with Thai and Laotian authorities. The Thai Search and Rescue Centre in Bangkok said Thailand had sent helicopters to search for the plane. Thepthavorn Saengmanee, deputy spokesman of the Lao foreign ministry in Vientiane, said there was no airstrip in northern Laos close to the Thai border large enough for an F-27 to land. According to Jane's "All The World's Aircraft," the Fokker 27 needs more than a km (0.6 mile) of runway for landing. In January, 14 people, including three foreigners, were killed when a Myanmar Airways F-27 carrying about 45 people on a domestic flight crashed near Thandwe, about 320 km (200 miles) northwest of Yangon. Soccer - Tiger-Cup By Paul Alexander / Associated Press Writer HANOI, Vietnam (AP) -- Le Huynh Duc scored a pair of goals in the final five minutes to complete Vietnam's 4-1 victory over Laos Wednesday night and cap the the country's grandest display pageantry for the opening of the Tiger Cup. Singapore beat Malaysia 2-0 earlier in the day to open the eight-nation event, a regional competition in which Thailand is the highest-ranked team at No. 45 in the world. But it is the biggest international sports event to come to Vietnam, and excitement bubbled over everywhere. Top officials, including the prime minister and the Communist Party chief, were on hand in Hanoi's 20,000-seat stadium, which recently completed a $400,000 upgrade. The opening ceremony, delayed until the break between games for prime-time TV coverage in Southeast Asia, blended youth, women dancing in traditional costumes, miniature hot-air balloons flaming into the night sky and a laser light show. With the World Cup theme song blaring, the standing- room-only crowd left happy after seeing the its local heroes rout neighboring Laos. Nguyen Hong Son and Nguyen Van Sy each scored in the first half, but Keolakhone Channiphone pulled Laos with 2-1 in the 60th minute. The two late goals then clinched the victory to the delight of the more than capacity crowd. In the Group B opener, Mohammed Rafi Bin Mohammed Ali and Ahmad Latiff Bin Kamaruddin each scored in the first half, and Singapore's defense stymied Malaysia's lackluster attack. Group A competition starts Thursday in Ho Chi Minh City when Indonesia plays the Philippines, followed by Thailand against Myanmar. The finals are Sept. 5 with first-place prize money of $80,000. Soccer is a national obsession in Vietnam, so even though the gates didn't open until 2 p.m., people with general-admission tickets began packing an adjacent street in early morning so they could grab prime spots. Two hours before the kickoff of the first mat, entire sections already had filled. Thousands of other fans milled around outside the stadium, many painting their faces with the gold-star-on-red Vietnamese flag. Capitalism, at its best and worst, was in evidence everywhere in the heart of the communist country. Virtually every nearby home was turned into a makeshift outdoor cafe. One vendor said she had sold nearly 100 small Vietnamese flags in the first hour. Parking was going for triple the rate for a regular match. Despite a heavy police presence, ticket scalpers, or touts, operated openly, seeking 150,000 dong ($10.70) -- a huge amount in a country with an average annual per-capita income of about $300 -- for a 65,000 dong ($4.64 ticket). Only 3,000 tickets are being made available for each match to the general public; the rest have been allocated to government departments and agencies. Metal detectors were in use at each entrance to help enforce a ban on cans and bottles. Drinks were poured into plastic bags with straws. During the six-week World Cup -- a tournament for which Vietnam has never qualified -- the country nearly shut down as people stayed up to 4 a.m. to watch matches live. Streets that normally would be bustling on a Saturday night were deserted. Soccer-Tiger Cup results HANOI, Aug 26 (Reuters) - Results of Tiger Cup soccer group B matches on Wednesday: Singapore 2 - Mohd Rafi Ali 12, Ahmad Latif 35 Malaysia 0 Halftime 2-0 - - - - Vietnam 4 - Nguyen Hong Son 30, Nguyen Van Sy 43, Le Hyun Duc 83, 90 Laos 1 - Keolakhone Channiphone 59 H.T: 2-0 - - - - Group B Standings P W D L F A Pt Vietnam 1 1 0 0 4 1 3 Singapore 1 1 0 0 2 0 3 Malaysia 1 0 0 1 0 2 0 Laos 1 0 0 1 1 4 0