Gerald Herbert / AP file

Damage from an explosion on an oil rig is seen in the Gulf of Mexico, about 25 miles southeast of Grand Isle, La., on Nov. 16.

The Philippine Embassy said Monday that Philippine officials have been sent to Louisiana to help Filipino workers who were wounded in an explosion and fire last week at an oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico.

The body of one of two missing Filipino workers was found Saturday and turned over to the Jefferson Parish coroner. He was identified on Monday as Ellroy Corporal, 42. The second man, identified as Jerome Malagapo, remains missing. Four people remain hospitalized.

The U.S. Coast Guard has called off its search for Malagapo, but Black Elk Energy, the Houston-based owner of the ill-fated platform, continued looking on its own.

“We know that it has been more than 48 hours but we Filipinos always believe in miracles and we continue to pray that our other kababayan (countryman) will be found alive,” Philippine Ambassador Jose L. Cuisia Jr. in Washington said on Sunday in a statement.

Cuisia said the remains of Corporal will be sent back to the Philippines after an autopsy. The envoy said he personally contacted Corporal’s widow, Mary Jean, in Iligan City, Philippines, to extend his sympathy and to offer assistance for her and her two children.

The embassy said Philippine consular officials are in Baton Rouge, La., to attend to Corporal’s remains and to look into how the Philippine government could assist the four Filipinos who were seriously burned in the accident.

Body found at scene of oil platform explosion in Gulf of Mexico

Two of the four remain in critical condition at Baton Rouge General Hospital’s burn unit while another is in serious condition, embassy officials said. The fourth, identified as Wilberto Ilagan, is conscious and in fair condition, according to Deputy Consul General Castro.

Ilagan, who suffered burns in 35 percent of his body, was earlier reported to have asked his doctors to inform his family in the Philippines that he is alive and well after he was earlier erroneously reported to have succumbed to injuries.

“To my relatives, to my family, and to my country, I am alive and in good health. I am burned, but my heart and lungs are healthy,” the 50-year-old Ilagan said in the message that was conveyed on his behalf by his doctors.

The missing and injured men were guest workers with Grand Isle Shipyard, an oilfield contracting company out of Galliano, La..

They were among nearly two dozen workers on the oil platform at the time of the explosion and fire.

Grand Isle Shipyard CEO Mark Pregeant said the cause of the explosion and fire isn’t known. He said initial reports that a welding torch was being used at the time of the incident or that an incorrect line was cut “are completely inaccurate."

The explosion is being investigated by the local, state and federal authorities. The fire was extinguished a few hours after the blast and Coast Guard Capt. Ed Cubanski told reporters that the platform appeared to be structurally sound.

Black Elk said no oil was leaking from the charred platform, which hadn't been operating since August.

NBC News' James Eng and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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A view of the Baton Rouge, La., airport on Wednesday.

Updated at  6 p.m. ET: An unarmed passenger who locked himself in the cockpit of a vacant American Eagle plane Wednesday afternoon at the Baton Rouge, La., airport was taken into custody, officials say.

Police had been negotiating with the passenger who boarded the Embraer 145 that was supposed to leave for Dallas as Flight 2795, NBC station WVLA reported.

The FBI identified the suspect as Andrew Alessi, who faces charges of interfering with a flight crew.

The man was distraught but his motive was unclear, the FBI told NBC News.

American Eagle canceled the flight.

The passenger apparently had a ticket for the flight and boarded the plane at the gate after passing through security, they said.

The plane had landed from its previous flight and passengers and crew had left, officials said. The plane was being serviced when the man around noon forced his way past the gate agent, locked himself in the cockpit and tried to communicate with the tower, they said. However, he apparently did not know how to operate the radio or fly the plane, they said.

Power to the plane was cut off, so it was inoperable.

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The man was unarmed and was not on any no-fly lists, officials said.

The Baton Rouge Police Department and the FBI dealt with the incident, which was not considered a terrorist threat, WVLA reported.

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BATON ROUGE, La. – Hundreds of Louisiana teachers converged on the state Capitol on Wednesday to try to give state lawmakers and Republican Gov. Bob Jindal a lesson in education reform.

They were protesting Jindal's proposed changes to teacher evaluations, tenure and retirement plans, as well as charter school creation and regulation. Three bills encapsulating the changes were to be taken up by the House Education Committee.

At least four public school systems – Baker, St. Martin, Vermilion and East Baton Rouge – and several Baton Rouge charter schools canceled classes because teachers will be rallying at the Capitol today and tomorrow, according to local media reports. In other parishes, many teachers said they still planned to make the trip using personal days even though school won't be cancelled; substitute teachers would be filling in.

Steve Monaghan, president of the Louisiana Federation of Teachers, said he expected between 500 and 1,000 teachers at the Capitol on Wednesday.

He accused the Jindal administration of trying to rush through legislation that harms teachers without giving sufficient time to closely examine the impact.

“The governor lit this fuse," Monaghan told The Times-Picayune on Tuesday. "The governor chose to run his bills this week, not us. How can you expect, if we want to have a democracy, for people not to show up? The problem is not teachers exercising their rights; the problem is government trying to keep them from doing so."

Jindal’s office questioned why teachers would come to the Capitol to protest a week before standardized tests are administered to decide whether some students advance or graduate.

"The reality is that action is needed now,” the governor’s office said in a statement Tuesday. “Forty-four percent of Louisiana's public schools received a grade of D or F last year. Louisiana's 4th and 8th graders ranked among the bottom in English and Math when compared to other states. In 2010 there were 230,000 students in Louisiana below grade level - one third of all students in public school.”

Jindal’s office issued a press release last week that said more than 100 local elected officials, including school board members, sheriffs, parish presidents, mayors and city council members endorse his school reform plan.

According to the Times-Picayune, the package of bills would:

"dramatically curtail tenure protections for new teachers and make it easier to fire existing ones; shift hiring and firing power from school boards to superintendents; pave the way for a significant increase in public charter schools; and create a program that uses the public school financing formula to pay private school tuition for certain low-income students."

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