A TransAsia Airways airplane flying from Taipei to Kinmen crashed into the Keelung River yesterday, killing at least 25 people, the Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA) said.
Flight GE235 took off from Taipei International Airport (Songshan airport) at 10:52am, said the agency, which confirmed that it received a “Mayday” signal from the plane’s pilots at 10:53:35am.
The plane crashed hitting a taxi and a bridge before plummeting into a river killing at least 25 people.
Dramatic dash cam video caught the moment of the deadly crash. As the wreckage began to sink, rescue teams rushed to save the 58 people on board.
Crews rescued at least 15 injured passengers, but many are still missing. Authorities say most of the people in the front of the plane were killed.
Air traffic control personnel tried raising the pilots, but to no avail. Weather data provided by the control tower showed that visibility was 10km when the plane, an ATR 72-600, departed from Songshan airport.
The airline’s chief executive said the plane lost contact four minutes after it took off from Taipei for a one-hour flight to islands near the Chinese coast.
Investigators say the pilot called out Mayday three times, but offered no clues to why the flight was in trouble.
The Aviation Safety Council, which is in charge of investigating the cause of the accident, said that it had found the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder — also known as the “black boxes” — and would soon start decoding the data.
The data are critical in identifying the cause of the air crash.
The plane was carrying 58 people on board: 53 passengers and five cabin crew members. It was TransAsia Airways’ second plane crash in less than a year. Aviation authorities have ordered special inspections of all ATR 72-type aircraft.
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