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Original story
TransAsia airlines has suffered the crash of another ATR72. This time an ATR72-600 with 58 persons on board, registration B22816 performing flight GE235, from the capital Taipei’s Song Shan airport to Kinmen island, around 11:00 local (03:00Z) appeared to lose altitude and hit an elevated bridge soon after take off, and crashed in to the Keelung river. The weather was inclement at the time.
Taiwan’s Central News Agency (CNA) is reporting many people are injured and rescue efforts are in progress.
Picture sequence and video of crash
A dash-cam video shows the crash. The plane which is on a climb appears to suddenly lose altitude and bank sharply left before clipping the bridge. This is a typical profile of a stall. Accident investigators will determine the exact cause.
A picture sequence from the video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DjgonDgOtU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5yb0awcSDM
Second crash in six months
A little over six months ago, TransAsia lost an ATR72-500 registration B22810 near Magong airport in the Penghu islands. Flight GE222 too had 58 persons on board and had departed from the city of Kaohsiung. 44 of 54 passengers lost their lives along with all four crew. Read ASN report.
Update 1 – ATC recording
Courtesy Airline Reporter, based on ATC recordings, it appears flight GE235 suffered an engine failure soon after take-off. The original archive is here (pilot calls MAYDAY at 23:25 on the recording), but we have trimmed the recording and are posting it in .m4a format for our iPhone and iPad readers.
Flight path
A flight path from FlightRadar24 shows the flight duration of less than three minutes. The airplane gained a maximum altitude of about 1,400 feet, and a maximum speed of about 115 knots (202 km/h)
Update 2 – Death toll rises to 16
The death toll as of 17:00 local (09:00Z 14:30 IST), had risen to 16. Six at the crash site, and 10 en-route or at the hospitals (our apologies. We are translating Mandarin from the airline’s website).
Airframe B-22816 is MSN1141, less than 10 months old, delivered April 15, 2014 to the airline.
