Kuala Lumpur – Two Thai air force transport planes flew to Malaysia on Wednesday to evacuate the bodies of the 25 Thai victims of Malaysia’s worst ever bus crash, and injured survivors, embassy officials said.

First secretary Suwit Mangkhala said the C-130 aircraft  would land at the Subang military airbase on the outskirts of the Malaysian capital.

“The Thai military have sent two C-130 cargo aircraft and we are expecting the bodies of the 25 victims and some of the survivors to be ferried back on the planes,” he told AFP.

“Relatives and friends of some of the dead and the survivors will also be on the flight and they will accompany the bodies on the way back to Thailand,” he added.

“We are not sure how many of the survivors will be travelling on the same flight but arrangements have been made for them to do so.”

Suwit said Buddhist monks had carried out prayers for the dead Wednesday morning in northern Perak state, where the accident took place. The bodies will be flown to Kuala Lumpur before being transferred for the flight to Bangkok.

The Thai holidaymakers were returning to the capital Kuala Lumpur from the Cameron Highlands on Monday when their double-decker bus lost control near a sharp bend, crashed through a road divider and overturned into a ditch.

Police said the vehicle had been travelling along a winding road after leaving the hilltop resort when the driver lost control. Twenty-seven people were killed including two Malaysians, the driver and a tour guide.

The horrific accident sheared off the bus’s roof, and left the bodies of victims strewn across the road.

Road safety experts reportedly said the double-decker bus involved in the accident was unsuitable for uphill travel as it had a higher centre of gravity which made it more unstable than single-decked buses.

“The bus can become unstable when going uphill or when travelling at a higher speed,” Wong Shaw Voon, a senior official with the Malaysian Institute of Road Safety Research (Miros), which has been tasked with investigating the accident, told the Star newspaper.

“This is especially when drivers negotiate sharp bends,” he said, adding that all the passengers had been sitting on the upper deck which could have shifted the vehicle’s centre of gravity.

Coach accidents are relatively common in Malaysia, often involving interstate routes and accompanied by revelations that drivers were unlicensed, speeding or under the influence of drugs to keep themselves awake.