Autopsies for PNG crash victims

The bodies of the four victims of this week's plane crash in Papua New Guinea will be transported to Brisbane for autopsies.

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Papua New Guinea plane crash Aug 31, 2010

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THE bodies of the four victims of this week's plane crash in Papua New Guinea will be transported to Brisbane for autopsies, after being released by a PNG coroner.

The bodies of the three Australians and one New Zealander will be flown to Brisbane as soon as a large commercial aircraft becomes available, an Australian government source told AAP on Friday.

Cheyne sole survivor of PNG crash

The New Zealander's body was expected to be repatriated home from Australia at a later date.

Among the dead were marine pilot Richard "Chris" Hart, 61, from Sydney, and Trans Air co-owner and pilot Lesley Wright, 59, from Queensland.

The third Australian was Darren Moore, 44, from Leonora in Western Australia, who was a PNG civil aviation flight operations inspector.

The New Zealand victim, an employee of medivac company International SOS, has not been named.

Their Trans Air charter plane slid off the runway and burst into flames at Misima Island, Milne Bay, in PNG's southeast, on Tuesday afternoon.

Co-pilot Kelby Cheyne, 25, miraculously survived and was discharged from north Queensland's Townsville Hospital late on Thursday.

A convoy of PNG ambulances carried the remains of the four victims from Port Moresby airport to a nearby funeral home on Thursday afternoon.

PNG's Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) air safety director Wilson Sagati told AAP a crew was on the island to inspect the crash site but it was still too early to say what went wrong.

"We have retrieved the flight box recorder and it has been handed over to our accident commission," he said on Thursday.

Three Australian Transport Safety Bureau investigators were in Port Moresby on Thursday and were due to head to the remote island to help with the investigation.

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Cheyne sole survivor of PNG crash