Dozens confirmed dead and toll continuing to rise as search continues after TransAsia propeller jet went down in Taipei river

This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

The wreck of a TransAsia plane has been hoisted from a shallow river in Taipei as rescuers continued their search for the missing in a crash that killed at least 31 people.

Rescue workers in rubber rafts earlier on Wednesday pulled 15 people alive from the partially submerged fuselage of the ATR-72 propeller jet, which crashed into the river shortly after takeoff over Taiwan’s capital.

TransAsia GE 235, a domestic flight from Taipei to Kinmen – a small archipelago near mainland China – crashed at 10.56am local time. Dashcam videos posted online showed the aircraft in its final airborne moments, banked over steeply above a motorway then clipping a taxi cab and a bridge with its left wing before careering into the Keelung river.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A toddler is pulled alive from the wreckage of TransAsia GE 235

Taiwanese broadcasters played a recording of the plane’s final contact with the control tower in which the pilot called out “Mayday” three times. The recording offered no clues as to why the plane was in distress.

There was speculation in local media that the pilot may have turned sharply to follow the line of the river to avoid crashing into a high-rise residential area but Taiwan’s aviation authority said it had no evidence of that.

At the rescue scene workers brought in a crane to remove the wreck from the river. The death toll was expected to rise once crews were able to search through previously submerged portions of the fuselage.



Among the passengers were 31 mainland Chinese tourists travelling with two local travel agencies: Teyung Group and Flying Tours.

Lin Liqing, manager of the Teyung Group, arrived in Taipei to help with the handling of the incident.

“We are currently heading to the crash site and checking the passenger list with TransAsia Airways,” Lin said. She added that the passengers had been sent to eight local hospitals.



The manager of Flying Tours said that among 15 mainland Chinese tourists on the plane who were travelling with the agency, he had only confirmed one injured passenger – one of the two infants on board. He had no information on the remaining 14 people.



On Wednesday afternoon the Taiwanese broadcaster TVBS showed rescuers pulling a toddler alive from the wreckage and rushing the child to safety.



The chief executive of TransAsia, Chen Xinde, has publicly apologised for the crash.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Dashcam footage of the crash

Wednesday’s crash is the second by a TransAsia flight within the past six months. In July 2014 TransAsia flight ATR-72 went down while attempting to land in the Penghu islands soon after a typhoon, killing 48 people. The cause of the crash is still being investigated.

The flight’s black box has been recovered, according to local media. “Weather conditions were good and the pilot had 14,000 hours of flying hours and the co-pilot 4,000 hours,” Lin Zhiming, a representative from Taiwan’s Civil Aviation Authority, told reporters.

The driver of the clipped taxi cab “has been sent to a local hospital”, an assistant to the Crown Taxi Company’s general manager who identified himself as Mr Yang said.



“He has a head injury and concussion but all of his vital signs are stable.” Yang added that the company planned to raise the topic of compensation with TransAsia Airways at a later date.

As a drizzle fell around nightfall on Wednesday, military crews took portable bridges to the scene, where rescue workers were building docks for easier access to the wreckage. About 300 rescue personnel and members of the media stood along the banks of the narrow river.



Relatives of the victims were expected to arrive on Thursday, including some flying from Beijing.



ATR, a French-Italian consortium based in Toulouse, France, said it was sending a team to Taiwan to help in the investigation.



Greg Waldron, Asia managing editor at Flightglobal magazine in Singapore, described the ATR 72-600 as the latest iteration of one of the most popular turboprop planes in the world, particularly favoured for regional short-hop flights in Asia.

It had a good reputation for safety and reliability and was known among airlines for being cheap and efficient to operate. “It’s too early now to speculate on whether it was an issue with the aircraft or crew,” Waldron said.



The accessibility of the crash site should allow for a swift investigation and an initial report should be available within about a month, Waldron said.