Victims of Plane Crash in Taiwan Exceed 25

Rescue workers in Taiwan retrieved the remains of a TransAsia Airways plane from a shallow section of a river in Taipei, the capital. As night approached, the search for 18 missing passengers from the incident continued. The accident has claimed 25 victims so far. According to a report from the Associated Press on February 4, Flight GE 235 with 58 passengers, most of whom were from China, lost balance shortly after taking off from Taipei Airport, first colliding with a bridge of a highway and then crashing into the Keelung River, just a few dozen meters from the shore. Rescuers aboard rescue boats pulled 15 passengers from inside the aircraft, and the rescue operation continued after dark with cranes. With parts of the plane being pulled from the water, it is expected that the death toll will rise. Videos taken by people from moving cars on the highway and published in the media show the plane flying towards the overhead bridge over the river while tilted on its horizontal axis. In one of these videos, it is shown that the wing of the plane scraped the street and collided with a moving taxi before falling into the river. Local media speculations suggest that the pilot attempted to fly parallel to the river to avoid colliding with a tall residential building by making a sharp turn. However, the Taiwan Civil Aeronautics Administration stated that there is no evidence to support this. Local Taiwanese media aired the footage of the accident and the moments when the pilot issued emergency messages three times. However, this footage does not provide any clues about the cause of the accident or any malfunction in the aircraft. This is the second incident involving this type of aircraft (ATR 72) in the past year. The flight on Wednesday departed at 11:53 local time from Sungshan Airport in downtown Taipei towards Kinmen Island in Taiwan. Officials from the Taiwan Civil Aeronautics Administration stated that the pilot declared an emergency situation with the emergency code 'May Day' shortly after takeoff. Peter Chen, the manager of TransAsia, said, 'Contact with the aircraft was lost four minutes after takeoff.' He added in a press conference with the media, 'The weather conditions were favorable for the flight, and the cause of the accident is unclear. The crashed aircraft is the latest model of this type and had been in use for less than a year.' The Taiwan Tourism Office stated that 31 passengers on the plane were Chinese. Kinmen Airport is a common communication hub between Taiwan and Fujian Province in China. The Taiwan Civil Aeronautics Administration confirmed the figures of 23 dead, 15 rescued, and 20 missing passengers. One of the officials from the Taipei Fire Department and the rescue operation coordinator stated that the missing individuals are either trapped in part of the aircraft or have been swept away by the current. This official told reporters at the scene, 'Currently, the situation is not very optimistic. Passengers in the front part of the aircraft are likely dead.' As night fell, 300 rescuers and media reporters were still present at the site. Relatives of the victims had not yet managed to arrive at the site by Wednesday evening, but some are expected to arrive on Thursday. The Ministry of National Defense of Taiwan stated that 165 personnel and eight boats have been dispatched to join the firefighting rescue teams at the accident site. Another ATR 72 aircraft belonging to the same Taiwanese airline crashed on July 23 of the previous year on Penghu Island in Taiwan. The cause of that accident, which resulted in 48 deaths, is still under investigation. ATR, the French-Italian consortium based in Toulouse, France, stated that it has sent a team to participate in the investigations in Taiwan.