Death toll rises after plane in Taiwan clips bridge, crashes into river

A passenger plane clipped a bridge and plunged into a river in Taiwan on Wednesday, killing at least 31 people, according to the island’s official news agency, CNA.

Rescuers scrambled to pull survivors from the submerged wreck of the ATR 72 twin-engine turboprop aircraft, which went down shortly after takeoff from Taipei, the Taiwanese capital.

Fifty-eight people were aboard TransAsia Airways Flight GE235 when it veered out of control as it flew to Kinmen, off the coast of the Chinese province of Xiamen.

The toll: 31 confirmed dead, 15 injured and 12 missing, officials said. The search and rescue effort continues. Two other people, who were in a car on the bridge that was clipped by the wing of the plane as it went down, also were injured.

Crews later recovered the aircraft’s “black boxes,” said CNA, the island’s official news agency. The flight data recorder and voice data recorder were found in the tail of the plane, Ang Xingzhong, the executive director of Taiwan’s Aviation Safety Council, told the news agency.

A dash-cam video captured the moment the plane hurtled out of control above the city’s Nanhu Bridge before crashing into the Keelung River, just after 11 a.m. local time (8 p.m. PST Tuesday).

CNA reported that the pilot appeared to try to control the plane as it descended, but the aircraft’s wing grazed the overpass, clipping a passing taxi.

The two people in the taxi were injured but are in stable condition after being taken to hospital, CNA said.

The news agency reported on the efforts of one father who was injured in the crash. The man, who was not identified, was aboard with his wife and 1-year-old baby. The father, upon learning that his wife and child had been sent to separate hospitals, rode a bike to find his wife and baby, CNA said.

The wife and baby are injured but did not suffer life-threatening wounds, doctors said, according to the news agency. The father was barely injured.

Rescuers in lifeboats pulled survivors from the water and the wreckage. Some passengers appeared to be wearing life jackets as they waited their turn to board rescue boats.

The military said it had 165 personnel and numerous vehicles nearby to assist rescue efforts if required.

Hours after the crash, TransAsia Airways CEO Chen Xinde extended a “deep apology to the victims and our crew.”

He said 31 of the passengers aboard the flight were Chinese tourists, including three children. Twenty-two were from Taiwan, including one child.

The airline had sent the passenger manifest to authorities, and families were confirming the identities of the deceased, he said.

Airline staff have been dispatched to hospitals to help families and the injured, as well as the taxi driver and passenger who were also receiving treatment.

Some were also going to Xiamen to assist two Chinese travel agencies, Chen said.

The 31 Chinese tourists were traveling in two tour groups: the Xiamen Airlines International Travel Service Co. and the Xiamen Tourism Group International Travel Service Co.

Chou Jih-shine, the vice chairman of the Straits Exchange Foundation — a quasi-governmental agency that covers cross-Taiwan Strait negotiations — said the agency had informed its Beijing counterpart. Chou added that the agency had sent personnel to the crash site.

Taiwan’s Civil Aeronautics Administration said the plane was less than a year old and had last completed a safety check on Jan. 26. The agency did not offer any information on what may have caused the crash.

Last year, an older TransAsia ATR 72, which was attempting to land in the Taiwanese Penghu Islands, crashed, resulting in 48 deaths.

The TransAsia crash is the latest in a number of plane tragedies involving Asian carriers.

AirAsia Flight QZ8501 crashed on Dec. 28 as it flew from the Indonesian city of Surabaya toward Singapore. There were 162 people on board.

In July, Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was shot down over eastern Ukraine, killing all 298 aboard.

TransAsia was involved in another deadly crash in July of last year, too. In Taiwan, 48 died on TransAsia Airways Flight 222, another ATR 72 aircraft. The cause of that crash is unclear.

The biggest recent mystery has been the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370. It disappeared on March 8, 2014, and has not been found.