Recovery operations following the crash of TransAsia Airways Flight 235 are continuing apace in Taipei City, with emergency services and ROC military personnel working round the clock to locate survivors.
Carrying five crew members and 53 passengers, including 31 mainland Chinese tourists mostly from Xiamen in Fujian province, GE235 departed 10:52 a.m., Feb. 4, from Taipei Songshan Airport. It was due to land around noon in outlying Kinmen County.
As of 5 p.m., Feb. 5, three crew members and 28 passengers are dead, 15 injured and 12 missing. The tragedy also caused two injuries on the ground.
According to the Civil Aeronautics Administration, the pilots of the ATR-72 twin-engine turboprop radioed “Mayday, mayday, engine flameout” two minutes after takeoff. Air traffic control immediately cleared GE235 to return to TSA but soon lost contact with the aircraft.
Footage captured by a car dashboard-mounted camera showed GE235 five kilometers away from TSA lurching over Nanyang Bridge, clipping the structure and a taxi with its left wing before breaking into two and plunging into the Keelung River.
Aviation experts and eyewitnesses praised the pilots for their bravery, describing efforts to steer the doomed plane away from a nearby residential area and ditch in the river as “heroic” and “utterly selfless.”
“There is no question in my mind that the actions of these pilots saved the lives of residents and gave passengers a fighting chance of survival,” one eyewitness said. “They did all they could do and deserve the highest praise.”
The CAA said it has recovered the aircraft’s black box and expects to release preliminary findings in the near future.
President Ma Ying-jeou visited passengers in two hospitals and paid respects on behalf of the nation at a funeral home. Premier Mao Chi-kuo also instructed Ministry of Transportation and Communications to have local carriers implement enhanced safety inspections of their fleets.
Separately, Straits Exchange Foundation is working with its mainland Chinese counterpart Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits to bring relatives of GE235 passengers to Taiwan. The first arrivals are expected today in Taipei.
This is the second crash involving an ATR-72 operated by the Taipei-based carrier in seven months. On July 23, 2014, Flight 222 ploughed into a residential area while attempting a go-around in outlying Penghu County. Forty-eight of the 58 souls on board were killed, with five injured on the ground. (SFC-JSM)
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