Glen Innes is reeling as word spreads that two well-known men were among the 49 people believed to be killed when a commercial passenger plane crashed into the Mekong River in Laos.

The Sydney Morning Herald’s Megan Levy and Lindsay Murdoch report that Nepal-based aid worker Michael Creighton and his father Gordon, a former Glen Innes Public School and High School teacher and past-president of the Glen Innes Magpies rugby league club, are among those presumed dead.

Flight QV301 was flying from the Lao capital Vientiane to Pakse and had experienced severe turbulence during the 75 minute flight, according to Laos officials.

Mr Creighton, believed to be travelling with his father, was listed on the plane manifest as an operations manager at aid organisation Norwegian People's Aid.

Michael was a University of NSW graduate who had worked on aid projects around the world, including in Afghanistan, Iraq, Switzerland and Cambodia.

Much of his international work centred on mine action programs, and he was believed to be working in this role in Laos.

Norwegian People's Aid released a statement, saying: "An NPA Operations Manager from Australia is among the passengers that are missing after the accident. We are currently trying to get all the information possible concerning this event."

In the 1990s Mr Creighton worked as a Royal Australian Engineer Officer in the Australian Army, and had completed studies at the Royal Military College Duntroon and the Australian Defence Force Academy.

He had also worked at the General International Centre for Humanitarian Demining in Geneva [GICHD].

One of his colleagues told a Geneva-based website, genevalunch.com, that he had visited the city recently.

“Mike was one of these guys that you would want to live forever. He visited Geneva to attend an internal NPA workshop only a couple of months ago,” said Havard Bach, from the mines and arms department at NPA, who worked with Mr Creighton there and at GICHD.

Mr Creighton was formerly the company operations manager and joint owner of Professional Service Solutions, a Brisbane-based company offering training to clients operating in difficult environments throughout the world. The company's chief executive declined to comment on Thursday.

Lao Airlines released a list of the passengers on Thursday morning that included Australian victims. Among them were Gavin Rhodes, 39, his wife Phoumalaysy (Lea) Rhodes, 35, and their children, 17-month-old Manfred Rhodes and three-year-old Jadesuda Rhodes.

Mr Rhodes, a tax consultant, lived in western Sydney with his young family and worked in the family business,  Etlanda Taxation and accounting services