Horrified motorists witness Taiwan

airliner flip into river. At least 23 killed.

At least 19 people were killed and more than two dozen injured Feb. 4 outside Taipei.

Feb. 4, 2015This screen grab taken from a video shows a TransAsia ATR 72-600 turboprop
plane clipping an elevated motorway and hitting a taxi before crashing into the Keelung river
outside Taiwan's capital Taipei in New Taipei City. TVBS Taiwan/AFP/Getty Images

By Lindsey Bever, Nick Kirkpatrick and Abby Phillip February 4 at 8:11 AM

A Taiwanese TransAsia turboprop plane carrying 58 passengers and crew slammed

into a bridge on Wednesday morning, careening on its wing almost in a cartwheel
over the roadway and crashing into a shallow river in Taipei a horrifying scene
captured by a motorists video camera. The accident killed at least 23 people and
injured more than a dozen others,according to local news reports. Many passengers
are still missing.
Shortly after takeoff, one of the planes pilots sent a frantic message: Mayday,

Mayday, engine flameout. A flameout is engine failure when the fuel supply to
the engine is interrupted or there is faulty combustion,Reuters reported.
The TransAsia Airways flight, carrying 53 passengers and five crew members, lost
contact with flight controllers shortly after it departed at about 10:53 a.m. local
time and crashed into Taipeis Keelung River justminutes later, according to a
statement from Taiwanese Central Disaster Response Centre. The text has been
translated by the Guardian Australia.

Object 1

Footage from an in-car camera provided by a witness showed that a plane turned sideways and then
grazed an elevated expressway before crashing in Taipei, Taiwan. (AP)

Dramatic video footage captured by a motorist has emerged on social media,

showing flight GE235, a turboprop ATR 72-600 aircraft, skidding on its wing across
the roadway before plummeting into the river, not far from the citys downtown
Songshan Airport. On its way down, the plane also hit a taxi, injuring the driver,
Taiwans TVBS news network reported. Images from local media show the aircrafts
body protruding from the water on its side, which is now missing a wing.
Taipei rescue teams were deployed to the scene in fire trucks, ambulances and
watercraft vehicles. First responders in rubber boats crowded the water, searching

for survivors. Passengers wearing life jackets swam to shore or were pulled from the
wreckage using ropes. Twenty people are still missing and 15 were rescued with
injuries, according to the Associated Press.

Object 2

A Taiwan plane with 58 people on board crashed into a river shortly after takeoff from a Taipei
airport, killing at least nine people. (Reuters)

The taxi driver who was hit and survived has been called the luckiest man alive.
He reportedly told a doctor at the hospital that he remembers feeling very scared.
I fainted the moment it hit us, the driver said, according to a doctor who treated

him at Taipeis City Hospital. The Apple Daily newspaperreportedly had the story.

Airline Reporter @AirlineReporter

Follow

Photo of the cab hit as #GE235 flew over the freeway... very lucky
http://www.airlinereporter.com/2015/02/transasia-atr72-flight-ge235-crashestake-off/
1:26 AM - 4 Feb 2015

Wu Jun-hong, with the Taipei Fire Department, said those who were missing were
either still in the plane or had been pulled down the river.
At the moment, things dont look too optimistic, he told reporters at the scene.

Those in the front of the plane are likely to have lost their lives.

An injured passenger is helped onto land by emergency personnel along the river bank. (Sam
Yeh/AFP/Getty Images)

The taxi driver is reported to be in stable condition, but some were not so fortunate.
Many still missing are thought to be trapped inside a submerged section at the front
of the plane, according to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
The focus of our work is to try to use cranes to lift the front part of the wreckage

which is submerged under the water and is where most of the other passengers are
feared trapped, an unnamed official told reporters at the scene.
Lin Chieh Yu, a government official in Taipei, told the Independent a 400-ton crane
is at the site, but that a larger machine is needed to pull the plane from the river.
The victims names have not yet been released, though Taiwans civil aviation
authority told the Guardian Australia the two pilots, both men, have been identified
as Liao Jianzong and Liu Zizhong. A third trainee pilot was identified as Hong
Binzhong. The passengers, including two children, were all reportedly from Taiwan
and China. Local TV footage showed one childs rescue.
In the video, rescuers are seen lifting a child onto a boat beside the wreckage.
The 31 passengers from China were traveling with two different tour groups and 22
others were from Taiwan.

Object 3

Workers lifted the fuselage of a TransAsia Airways turboprop plane from the shallow river in Taipei
where it crashed. At least 23 people were killed and many more are still missing. (AP)

A TransAsia spokeman declined to comment to the AP on the possible cause of the

crash, but TransAsia chief executive Chen Xinde offered his deep apology to the
victims and our crew at a news conference.
The black boxes flight recordings that will help authorities determine what
exactly went wrong have been pulled from the water, according to local news
reports.
Wednesdays accident is somewhat reminiscent of the 1982 plane crash in
Washington, D.C., where a severe snowstorm sent Air Florida Flight 90 careening
into the citys 14th Street Bridge after takeoff. Icy conditions kept the plane from
gaining momentum during departure and, once airborne, it could not get enough
speed and altitude to fly.
The aircraft hit the bridge, plummeting into the Potomac River.
The TransAsia Airways aircraft was the second to crash in the past year. Last

summer, a flight from Kaohsiung, Taiwan, went down while attempting to land on
Penghu, an island off the coast of Taiwan, killing 48 people and injuring 10 others.
That aircraft was also a French-built ATR 72 plane. The planes manufacturer said
it would send a team to Taiwan to investigate what went wrong, the AP reported.
[This story has been updated.]
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Lindsey Bever is a national news reporter for The Washington Post.

She writes for the Morning Mix news blog. Tweet her: @lindseybever

Nick Kirkpatrick is a digital photo editor at The Washington Post.

Follow him on Instagram or on Twitter.

Abby Phillip is a general assignment national reporter for the

Washington Post. She can be reached atabby.phillip@washpost.com. On
Twitter: @abbydphillip
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