tragedy in taiwan: survivors swept away after crash into river
At least 25 dead, including pilots, following crash after takeoff
The two pilots at the controls of a turboprop plane that crashed Wednesday soon after taking off from Taipei were being hailed as heroes after at least 15 of the 58 passengers survived.
TransAsia Flight GE235 from Taipei, the capital of Taiwan, to Kinmen island, lost altitude soon after takeoff, with one of the plane’s pilots sending a frantic message, “Mayday, Mayday, engine flameout.”
As the plane fell to the earth, the pilots appear to have steered for the Keelung river to avoid the nearby buildings.
A dramatic video, captured by a car dashboard camera, showed the plane spiralling over a road bridge, clipping it with its wing, before plunging into the water.
A taxi was also damaged and its driver passed out in fear at the moment of impact.
Survivors said they had no indication the plane was in trouble until it started to bank over sharply.
Passenger Lin Mingwei, who was travelling with his school teacher wife Jiang Yuying and his son Lin Riyao, aged two, said there was no warning the plane was about to crash and there was also no explosion.
He managed to pull his wife and son from the water, but the boy is now in intensive care after too much water entered his lungs, Hong Kong’s Apple Daily newspaper reported.
Experts praised pilots Liao Jiangzhong, 41, and Liu Zizhong, suggesting their actions helped to save passengers’ lives.
“This pilot decided to land in a narrow river without buildings because there is a residential area nearby. He did all he could do,” Liao Linghui, a Taiwanese aviation expert told the local SET News, adding the plane’s captain was a hero.
At least 25 people, including the pilots, died in the crash, while another 15 were pulled from the wreckage during the daylight and taken to hospital.
Some of the victims are through to have survived the plane hitting the water, but were then swept away by the river current. Their bodies have yet to be found.
Onlookers watched on both banks of the Keelung River, which is adjacent to the airport, as a dozen rescuers were on top of the partially submerged fuselage, trying to break through to check for more people.
They managed to open at least one rescue hatch. Ambulances and fire trucks lined the south bank of the river, which stretches about 80 metres bank to bank in the area where the plane went down.
In the light drizzle against an overcast sky, rescuers were moving about in small inflatable rescue boats. Rescue divers searched underwater, assisted by a hovercraft as a search helicopter hovered above the site.
The rescue operation continued after dark when workers were able to use a crane to hoist the wrecked plane out of the water. The death toll is expected to rise once crews were able to search through previously submerged portions of the fuselage, which came to rest a few dozen metres from the shore.
Part of the freeway above it was littered with debris and was closed after the crash.
Officials said the plane’s “black boxes” had been recovered.
Some of the passengers brought to the Taipei City Hospital had fractured bones and bruises, said Chen Chia-chich, a spokesman for the medical centre.
The driver of the taxi that was hit by the plane and its female passenger were also brought to the same hospital, with finger bone fractures.
Aviation officials in Taiwan declined to comment until after an investigation, but said the plane had been recently serviced and the weather was “OK”.
Peter Chen, TransAsia’s director, said contact with the plane was lost four minutes after takeoff. He said weather conditions were suitable for flying and the cause of the accident was unknown.
“Actually this aircraft in the accident was the newest model. It hadn’t been used for even a year,” he told a news conference.
Thirty-one passengers were from China, Taiwan’s tourism bureau said. Kinmen’s airport is a common link between Taipei and China’s Fujian province.
Relatives of the victims had not reached the scene by dusk Wednesday, but some were expected to arrive Thursday, including some who were flying from Beijing.