Investigators on the resort island of Phuket today began the task of identifying the dead in Thailand's worst air disaster in a decade.
The deputy transport minister, Sansern Wongcha-um, told reporters that 89 people, including 53 foreigners, had been killed in the crash, and 41 others injured.
An unofficial list compiled by the Thai foreign ministry showed that among the dead were six Britons, three Israelis, two Americans, two French nationals, and one each from Australia, Germany, Iran, Ireland and Sweden.
However, the list was incomplete as more than 30 foreign fatalities had not yet been identified.
The budget One-Two-Go Airlines flight was carrying 123 passengers and seven crew from Bangkok to Phuket when it skidded off a runway yesterday while landing in driving wind and rain. The plane caught fire, engulfing some passengers in flames as others tried to escape.
Israel and Australia have offered to identify the charred bodies from the crash. Eight experts from Israel, which sent a team to the island to help identify the nearly 5,500 victims of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, were due to arrive on Phuket tomorrow.
"We welcome any offer from foreign friends," a foreign ministry spokesman, Piriya Khempon, told Reuters.
Investigators have recovered the two flight recorders, or "black boxes", that should shed light on the reasons behind the crash.
"We are still unable to say the cause of accident," the transport minister, Theera Haocharoen, said. "The officials have found the black boxes and will send them for analysis to the United States. Hopefully we will learn in a few weeks the cause of accident."
Kajit Habnanonda, the president of Orient-Thai Airlines, which owns One-Two-Go, said wind shear - the rapid change in wind speed that can affect takeoffs and landings - was a possible cause of the accident.
He said heavy rain could also have contributed to the plane skidding off the runway.
The deputy governor of Phuket, Worapot Ratthaseema, said British passengers were among the dead, along with Irish, French, German, Israeli and Australian travellers.
Reports have put the British death toll at around 10, with eight survivors, but the Foreign Office was unable to give exact figures on the Britons involved.
The British ambassador to Thailand, Quinton Quayle, who arrived in Phuket with a 10-strong embassy team, said he believed that "several" British nationals had died in the crash.
"Identifying victims positively is a very difficult process after an accident in which the plane caught fire and unfortunately many of the people on board were disfigured," he told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme.
"We want to get it right and that requires some painstaking work by my staff. As soon as we have got definitive information we will, of course, release it."
Mr Quayle said he had spoken to two British survivors, who were in "good shape and pretty good heart".
"We helped them to communicate with their families and friends in the UK," he said.
A spokesman for Bangkok Phuket hospital confirmed the names of six British survivors they were treating as Benjamin Zachary Green, 24; Peter James Hill, 35; Ashley Scott Harrow, 27; Christopher Edward Cooley, 23; William Burke, 23, and Mahsa Fatoorechi.
He did not have the name of a second British woman being treated, and could not give details about their injuries or where they were from in Britain.
There had been a total of 78 foreign passengers on board the plane, according to Monrudee Gettuphan, the vice-president of corporate communications for the air transport authority of Thailand.
Survivors said the aircraft was preparing to land in heavy rain when it suddenly lifted off again, then crashed down on the runway. It rammed through a low retaining wall and split in two.
Survivors described their escape amid chaos, smoke and fire.
"I think he realised the runway was too close or he was too fast or the wind had hit him," Robert Borland, a Swiss survivor, told the Associated Press. "He accelerated and tried to pull out. I thought, he is going around again, and the next thought was everything went black and there was a big mess and we hit the ground."
Mr Borland, 48, who lives in Australia, said his trousers caught fire. He managed to drag himself to an exit from where he was pulled to safety by another survivor.
"People were screaming. There was a fire in the cabin and my clothes caught fire," he said.
Many of the passengers had been planning to holiday at Phuket, a popular beach resort that was among the areas hit hardest by the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, which killed more than 8,000 people on the island.
The crash was the country's deadliest aviation accident since December 11 1998, when 101 people were killed when a Thai Airways plane crashed while trying to land in heavy rain at Surat Thani, 330 miles south of Bangkok. Forty-five people survived.
The accident raised new questions about the safety of budget airlines in south-east Asia, which have grown rapidly in number in recent years and often struggle to find qualified pilots. Airline officials said the pilot of the crashed plane was experienced.
None of Thailand's budget airlines has previously suffered a major accident, but there have been several deadly crashes in Indonesia. Many budget airlines use older planes that have been leased or bought after years of use by other airlines.
According to Thai and US aviation registration data, the plane that crashed in Phuket was manufactured and put into use in 1983. It began flying in Thailand in March this year.
One-Two-Go Airlines, which began operating in December 2003, is the domestic subsidiary of Orient-Thai Airlines, a regional charter carrier based in Thailand.