23 killed in Taiwan plane crash

Taipei, February 4: At least 21 people died when a Taiwan TransAsia Airways plane plunged into the Keelung River in Taipei on Wednesday morning barely 10 minutes after takeoff. Survivors were taken to nearby hospitals in Taipei and New Taipei cities, Xinhua news agency reported citing disaster relief authorities. The plane’s two black boxes were recovered and were expected to be deciphered by Wednesday night. Flight GE235 was headed for Kinmen from Taipei with 53 passengers on board, including 31 from the Chinese mainland, and five crew. Three of the mainland passengers are known to be children.

The plane has been in service since April 2014 and was subject to a routine safety check this month, according to Taipei authorities. The aircraft plunged into the river at 10.55 a.m. after its wing clipped a taxi with a man and a woman inside on an elevated motorway.

The mainland passengers were on trips organised by two travel agencies from Xiamen city in the southeast mainland province of Fujian, the Taiwan tourism authority confirmed. The State Council Taiwan Affairs Office and the Association for Relations across the Taiwan Straits launched a joint emergency response operation and were being kept up to date by Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council and the Straits Exchange Foundation. They extended condolences to the families of the victims and urged those on the ground to do as much as they could.

On July 23, 2014, TransAsia Airways flight GE222, also an ATR–72 aircraft, crashed on Taiwan’s Penghu island, killing 48 people. TransAsia Airways, founded in 1951, is Taiwan’s first private airline, mainly focusing on short overseas flights. (IANS)