These images were captured as the plane careered over an elevated road
A plane carrying mostly Chinese tourists has crashed into a river in Taiwan, killing at least 19 people.
Dramatic
video footage emerged showing the TransAsia Airways plane clipping a
bridge as it came down shortly after take-off from a Taipei airport.
The
plane, carrying 58 people, has broken up and the fuselage is lying
half-submerged in the Keelung River. Rescue efforts are ongoing.
Another TransAsia plane crashed in bad weather last July, killing 48 people.
Cindy Sui reports: ''Many of the people on board are still inside the aircraft''
Rescuers
on boats have cut the plane open to gain access, attempting to access
passengers reportedly trapped in the front section of the fuselage.
Television
footage showed passengers swimming clear of the wreckage, with reports
suggesting 15 people had survived the crash and a further 24 were
missing.
TransAsia
said in a statement that one passenger had already been discharged from
hospital but did not confirm the number of survivors.
The
ATR-72 turbo-prop plane had just taken off from Taipei Songshan Airport
and was heading to the Kinmen islands, just off the coast of the
south-eastern Chinese city of Xiamen.
The
final communication from the pilots to air traffic control was "Mayday,
mayday, engine flame out", according to a recording played on local
media. The recording was not immediately verified by aviation officials.
Flight controllers lost contact with the plane at 10:55 local time (02:55 GMT).
Footage of the plane filmed from inside passing cars showed it banking sharply, hitting a taxi and clipping the bridge before crashing into the river.
"I saw a taxi, probably just metres ahead of me, being hit by one wing of the plane," an eyewitness told local media.
"The plane was huge and really close to me. I'm still trembling."
Reports on the number of dead varied, with many citing numbers higher than the 16 confirmed by TransAsia.
- Founded in 1951 as Taiwan's first private civilian-operated domestic airline, later expanded to overseas routes
- Has about 20 planes in its fleet - a mix of Airbus and dual-propeller ATR planes
- Gained popularity due to its low-cost tickets
- Flies many routes between Taiwan and mainland China, and to parts of South East Asia
TV footage showed rescuers standing on large sections of broken wreckage trying to pull passengers out of the plane with ropes.
But officials said some passengers were still trapped inside the wreckage, which appeared to be upside down.
"We're asking the public works department for heavy cranes to be deployed in the hope that the body of the plane can be lifted up," said Wu Jun-Hong, assistant director of Taipei's fire department.
"At the moment, we think a lot of the trapped people are in the head of the plane."
The plane's flight data recorders, also known as black boxes, have been recovered. Footage from the crash site showed them in a car belonging to the rescue services.
Rescuers believe several people are trapped near the head of the plane
The military is helping in the rescue effort
An injured passenger is escorted up the river bank by one of the rescue workers
The plane was carrying five crew and 53 passengers, including 31 tourists from the south-eastern Chinese city of Xiamen.
TransAsia said it had contacted relatives of all the 22 Taiwanese passengers and was attempting to reach relatives of the Chinese nationals on board.
The BBC's Cindy Sui in Taipei says the Chinese tourists could have been on their way home as many people come to Taiwan through Kinmen island.
TransAsia chief Chen Xinde offered a "deep apology" in a televised news conference, but said his planes had been "under thorough scrutiny" since mid-2014.
"Both our planes and our flight safety system are following strict regulations, so we also want to know what caused the new plane model to crash, but I don't want to speculate," he said.