Death toll reaches 31 in Taiwan plane crash with 12 people still missing

Rescuers were still searching for 12 people this morning after using a crane to hoist the fuselage of a wrecked TransAsia Airways plane from a shallow river in Taiwan’s capital following a crash that killed at least 31 others yesterday. Flight 235 with 58 people aboard - many of them Chinese - banked sharply on its side shortly after takeoff from Taipei, clipped a highway bridge and then careened into the Keelung River. Rescuers have pulled 15 people alive from the wreckage which came to rest around 100 feet from the shore.

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

Wu Jun-hong, a Taipei Fire Department official who was co-ordinating the rescue

Dramatic video clips apparently taken from cars were posted online and aired by broadcasters, showing the ATR 72 propjet as it pivoted onto its side while zooming toward a traffic bridge over the river. In one of them, the plane rapidly fills the frame as its now-vertical wing scrapes over the road, hitting a vehicle before heading into the river. Speculation cited in local media said the crew may have turned sharply to follow the line of the river to avoid crashing into a high-rise residential area.

World TransAsia