TransAsia Airways plane crash: Driver’s amazing escape as plane hits taxi on bridge and crashes in river

 
Shocking: the plane crashes over a bridge in Taipei (Picture: Rex Features)
Kiran Randhawa4 February 2015

These dramatic images show the moment a plane clipped a taxi on a bridge before plunging into a river in Taiwan, killing at least 19.

Separate photographs show the taxi driver escaping from the wrecked Volkswagen, which was left with a smashed bonnet. He was taken to hospital with severe head injuries.

The death toll on the domestic flight, which had 58 people on board, was expected to rise today as rescue crews continued to scour the half-submerged wreckage, cutting into the craft to reach those trapped inside.

TransAsia flight GE235, an ATR 72-600 turboprop, came down in the Keelung river in the capital Taipei minutes after taking off at about 10.53am local time on its way to the Kinmen Islands. It was the airline’s second crash in eight months.

Passing drivers captured the flight’s final moments on dashboard cameras. The images show the aircraft banking sharply before flying into the bridge.

Taiwan Plane Crash

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One wing scrapes the road, clipping the taxi, and the tail hits the side of the bridge before the craft plummets into the river, sending up a plume of debris.

Accident: 58 people were on board the aircraft (Picture: Rex Features)

A witness, named only as Mr Wu, saw the plane come down from his 25th floor office. He told local television: “The whole thing was [over] in five to 10 seconds. I saw the flight hit the viaduct and fall into the river. I saw a big splash.”

Shocking: the plane crashes over a bridge in Taipei (Picture: Rex Features)

The driver of the taxi, named as Mr Zhou, reportedly suffered concussion and severe head injuries. He is said to have told doctors at Taipei’s City Hospital: “I fainted the moment it hit us.”

According to Taiwan’s tourism bureau 31 passengers were from China. Kinmen is a common link between Taipei and China’s Fujian province.

Tragedy: debris from the plane fills the air after the crash (Picture: Rex Features)

Taiwan’s civil aviation authority said 30 people were still unaccounted for this morning.

Wu Jun-hong, a Taipei Fire Department official who was co-ordinating the rescue, said those missing were still in the fuselage or had been pulled down river.

Search: rescue personnel work to free passengers from the TransAsia plane (Picture: AFP/ Getty)

“At the moment, things don’t look too optimistic,” Mr Wu said. “Those in the front of the plane are likely to have lost their lives.”

Last July 48 people were killed when another ATR 72 operated by the same Taipei-based airline crashed in the outlying Taiwan-controlled islands of Penghu. The crash, which happened at the end of a typhoon, is still being investigated.

The cause of the latest disaster was not immediately clear but there were reports that the plane had tried to turn back before crashing.

TransAsia chief Chen Xinde offered a “deep apology” in a news conference today, but said his planes had been “under thorough scrutiny”.

“Our planes and our flight safety system are following strict regulations,” he said. “So we also want to know what caused the new plane model to crash, but I don’t want to speculate.”

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