PHUKET - THAI officials pored over evidence on Wednesday trying to piece together what caused the plane to crash, as it emerged that systems to detect dangerous winds were not fully working.

Forensic police edged closer to identifying the dead, of whom up to 57 were foreigners, as officials studied whether human error, foul weather or airport malfunctions - or a combination - caused Sunday's crash.

Vutichai Singhamany, a safety director at the Department of Aviation, said the pilot had put the landing gear down on approach to Phuket airport, but retracted it and tried to pull up.

'The wheels did not touch the runway,' Mr Vutichai said.

'Then the plane tried to pull up and the accident happened.'

He confirmed that three of the six systems designed to detect a dangerous weather phenomenon, known as wind shear, were not working when the passenger jet crashed.

However, he said that that may not have caused the tragedy.

'Aircrafts are equipped with their own warning systems, which do not depend on the ground ones,' he said.

The McDonnell Douglas MD-82 plane, operated by budget carrier One-Two-Go, slammed onto the runway in heavy rain before ploughing into an embankment and breaking up in flames, killing 89 of the 130 people on board.

Grieving relatives are also awaiting results of the investigation into the disaster on the popular holiday island.

A senior forensic police officer said they had identified all the Thai victims, but the identities of 34 foreigners who died were still unknown.

'We are waiting for more information from their families abroad, and have been in contact with foreign embassies to get this information, which could be fingerprints, dental records or DNA,' the officer told reporters.

One-Two-Go officials gave different figures, and said they had identified the Thai victims and all but 11 of the 52 foreign victims.

French embassy officials said nine of their nationals were killed, Britain has said it believes eight of its citizens also died and the United States has confirmed five deaths.

Iran suffered the highest toll, with 18 nationals killed. Germany, Sweden, Australia and Ireland have all also reported fatalities.

The pilot, an Indonesian, was also killed in the crash.

'Landing
The Nation newspaper reported on Wednesday that his final communication to the air traffic control tower was 'landing', after warnings of dangerous winds.

An air traffic control official said on Tuesday that pilot Arief Mulyadi was warned of wind shear by both another plane and controllers but decided to go ahead and land anyway.

The report in the English-language Nation seemed to back that theory up.

'Request your intention', the air traffic controller said, according to the paper. 'Landing', the pilot replied.

Wind shear is a sudden change in wind direction that can throw a plane off course but then disappear just as quickly, leaving pilots struggling to keep the jet under control.

One-Two-Go vice president Kajit Habanananda praised Mr Arief, who was flying with a Thai co-pilot.

'The pilot of the flight was our best and chief pilot, he worked with us for about a year,' Mr Kajit said on Wednesday.

He urged people to stop speculating on the cause of the crash and to wait for the analysis of the 'black box' flight recorders, which will be sent to the United States soon.

Mr Vutichai said those results should be known in just over two weeks. -- AFP