14 Aug 2009

Australia says recovery of PNG plane crash victims difficult

5:09 pm on 14 August 2009

Australia's foreign minister says a fourth body has been removed from the plane that crashed near Kokoda in Papua New Guinea on Tuesday.

Stephen Smith says, however, weather conditions remain very difficult.

Mr Smith says the recovery effort is potentially a painstaking and long process.

He says in addition to the problems of extracting the remains, there are the complex and difficult processes of formal identification.