TransAsia flight crashes in Taiwan river – as it happened

Here’s Jonathan Kaiman’s latest account of the crash and the rescue efforts.

With that we’re going to bring this blog to a close.

At least 23 people were killed in the crashed, Taipei’s fire department has confirmed, according to the Straits Times.

As at 6pm, 23 people have been confirmed dead - 14 of them died on the spot, and nine succumbed to their injuries before arriving at hospitals, according to fire department officials at the wreckage site. Twenty people remain missing, while 15 others are injured.

Authorities cannot ascertain if all the missing people are still inside the plane as eye witnesses claimed to have seen passengers being flung out of the plane as it plunged into the river.

Aviation expert David Learmount, operation and safety editor at Flight Global, says it is clear from the video footage that the plane was “fully stalled”.

In a blogpost on the possible causes of the crash he writes:

An aircraft stalls because it’s flying too slowly to generate sufficient lift from its wings and it starts to fall.

If an aeroplane is flying too slowly in level or descending flight it is normally because there is insufficient power to keep the aircraft’s speed up. The question for the investigators is why was there insufficient power?

Reports are coming in that the pilots made a Mayday call declaring an engine flame-out.

Both propellers were clearly turning, but that does not necessarily mean they were being supplied with sufficient power to fly safely.

If engine power is lost, the un-powered propeller can cause a lot of drag by windmilling, making the aircraft difficult to handle. Under those circumstances the crew would normally “feather” the propeller to cut the drag.

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As the scale of the accident is becoming clearer here’s a summary of what we know.

• More the 20 people are reported to have died after TransAsia Airways flight GE235 crashed into Keelung River shortly after take off from Taipei Songshan airport. The were 53 passengers and 5 crew on board. A major rescue operation continues.
  
• At least 15 people survived the crash, including a small child who was filmed being rescued. No survivors have been found for several hours.
  
• Relatives of the 31 Chinese passengers on board the flight will travel to Taipei on Thursday. Some 16 of the Chinese passengers were with Teyung Group, and the remainder with Flying Tours. Flying Tours confirmed that a Chinese child was among those rescued.
  
• Extraordinary footage has emerged of the plane partially crushing a taxi as it crashed into the river. A manager of the taxi company told the Guardian that the driver is in hospital with a head injury but is in a stable condition.
• Flight recorders have been salvaged from the wreckage. The pilot is reported to have alerted air traffic control to an engine flameout, but the cause of the crash is unknown.
• TransAsia has offered its deep apology for the crash as it faced questions abouts its safety record. Today’s crash is the carrier’s second fatal accident in seven months. Last year a TransAsia ATR 72-500 crashed while trying to land at Penghu Island, killing 48 of the 58 passengers and crew on board.

Hong Kong’s Apple Live is showing a live stream of the continuing rescue operation which is now taking place under flood lights.

A government official told the Telegraph that no survivors have been been found for nearly five hours. The official said the death toll has reached 22 people.

The Chinese relatives of passengers on board GE235 will travel to Taiwan on Thursday, according to China’s state broadcaster CCTV. It puts the death toll at 21.

The death toll has increased to 23 people, according to an unconfirmed report by the South China Morning Post.

Fifteen were injured - at least nine seriously, the paper said.

The paper’s news editor, Chungyan Chow, says the remaining 36 passengers have been rescued.

Britain’s trade and cultural office in Taipei has expressed its condolences to the families of those killed and injured in the crash.

The number of those killed is unclear. China’s state broadcaster CCTV says 19 people were killed.

That figure was also given by Channel News Asia, but it has since revised it down to 16 people killed.

Taiwan regulators are likely to put more pressure on TransAsia Airways to review its maintenance and safety procedures after its second fatal accident in seven months, Reuters reports.

Industry data showed the crash of Flight GE235, in which at least 16 people were killed, was the fifth aircraft the airline has written off since 1995.

The crash comes just seven months after a TransAsia ATR 72-500 crashed while trying to land at Penghu Island, killing 48 of the 58 passengers and crew on board.

There have been two other fatal accidents and another two major incidents in the airline’s history, according to data from Flightglobal Ascend, an industry consultancy.

In December 2012, an ATR 72-200 freighter crashed en route to Macau from Taipei, killing both crew members. In 1995, an ATR 72-200 crashed into a hill near Songshan, killing all four crew.

In 2003, an Airbus A321 was written off after colliding with a vehicle that had strayed onto the runway while the plane was landing. A year later, an Airbus A320 was severely damaged when it over-ran the runway while landing at Songshan. There were no fatalities in either of those incidents.

Investigators into the latest disaster are likely to focus on cockpit procedures and maintenance issues at the airline, said Greg Waldron, Asia Managing Editor at Flightglobal.

“Coming so soon after July’s crash, the airline could come under intense scrutiny by regulators, not to mention the impact this will have on public perceptions of the carrier,” he added.

The Mirror described the taxi driver whose cab was clipped by the plane as the “luckiest man alive”.

One picture appears to show him sat hunched against the roadside making a mobile phone call, it points out.

“I fainted the moment it hit us,” The Telegraph quotes the driver telling Hong Kong’s Apple Daily.

Hong Shiqi, head of medicine at the hospital, said the driver, who was named only as Mr Zhou, had recounted feeling “very scared”. When he woke up, he felt severe pain in his eyes.

Mr Zhou has a history of heart problems and is being kept in the hospital for observation as well as physcological support for possible trauma.

One of the passengers injured in the crash was a child from China, writes Jon Kaiman in Beijing.

The manager of the Taiwanese travel agency Flying Tourism told the Guardian that among 15 mainland Chinese tourists on the plane who were travelling with the agency, he had only confirmed one injured passenger – one of the two infants on board.

He had no information on the remaining 14 people. “We are only local guides,” said the man, who gave his name as Mr. Hsu. “It was a six day, five night travel package. The tour group arrived in Kaohsiung on 30 Jan and left Taipei this morning.”

The Independent Heather Saul picks out a still from video showing a small child being rescued.

TransAsia has issued a statement on its Facebook page which repeats the televised apology offered by its chief executive.

The statement says 13 people were killed in the crash. Those injured include a child, it says.

There continue to be conflicting reports about the number of people killed, injured and missing in the crash. Channel News Asia is now reporting that 19 people are confirmed dead, with 15 injured and further 24 “awaiting rescue”.

AP puts the death toll at 15.

In its last update Reuters said at least 11 people were killed, up to 19 are missing, and many as 28 people have survived.

An AFP graphic illustrates just how soon GE235 crashed after take off. The flight lasted three minutes.

The flight recorders have been recovered from the wreckage of the plane, according to Channel News Asia.

They should help confirm whether the pilot reported an engine flameout just after take off, as reported earlier by aviation blogger Jason Rabinowitz.

Video from RT shows the damage done to the cbridge and a taxi before flight GE235 crashed into the river.

The chief executive of TransAsia, Chen Xinde, has publicly apologised for the crash.

Appearing at a televised news conference he bowed and offered his “deep apology” to the passengers and crew, Reuters reports.