Taiwan TransAsia Plane Crashes Into River
Posted: Wed Feb 04, 2015 3:45 pm
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-31125052
4 February 2015 Last updated at 09:15 ET
A plane carrying mostly Chinese tourists has crashed into a river in Taiwan, killing at least 23 people.
Dramatic video footage emerged showing the TransAsia Airways plane clipping a bridge as it came down shortly after take-off from a Taipei airport.
The plane, carrying 58 people, has broken up and the fuselage is lying half-submerged in the Keelung River. Rescue efforts are ongoing.
At least 15 people have been pulled out alive, with 20 still missing.
Television footage showed some passengers wading clear of the sunken wreckage and a toddler being pulled out alive by rescuers.
The dramatic moment a toddler was rescued from the sunken wreckage of the jet
Emergency teams have cut the plane open to gain access, attempting to reach the remaining passengers trapped in the front section of the fuselage.
"At the moment, things don't look too optimistic," Wu Jun-hong, a Taipei fire department official coordinating the rescue effort, told reporters.
Mr Wu said the fire department had requested heavy cranes to pull the body of the plane out of the water.
The BBC's Cindy Sui: says there are still people trapped on the plane
TransAsia said in a statement that one passenger had already been discharged from hospital.
The ATR-72 turbo-prop plane had just taken off from Taipei Songshan Airport and was heading to the Kinmen islands, just off the coast of the south-eastern Chinese city of Xiamen.
It is the second TransAsia ATR-72 to crash in seven months, following an accident last July which killed 48 people and injured 15.
The final communication from the pilots to air traffic control was "Mayday, mayday, engine flame out", according to a recording played on local media. The recording was not immediately verified by aviation officials.
