Watch horrifying moment TransaAsia plane crashes into river, grazes taxi and kills 21

By Staff Reporter - 04 Feb '15 07:54AM

A TransAsia commercial flight crashed into a river in Taipei shortly after takeoff. At least 21 people have died and 28 have been pulled from the wreckage but many still remain trapped.

More than half of the passengers aboard TransAsia Airways Flight GE235 were from China and the death toll was expected to rise as rescue crews cleared the mostly submerged fuselage in the Keelung River.

Speculation cited in local media said the pilot may have turned sharply to follow the line of the river to avoid crashing into a high-rise residential area nearby, but Taiwan's aviation authority said it had no evidence of that.

Crews later recovered the black boxes belonging to the aircraft, according to Taiwan's official news agency CNA. The flight data recorder and voice data recorder were found in the tail of the plane, Ang Xingzhong, the executive director of Taiwan's Aviation Safety Council told the news agency.

Airline staff have been dispatched to hospitals to provide assistance to families and the injured, as well as the taxi driver and passenger who were also receiving treatment.

A video of the incident was caught on camera by a car's dash cam as the plane plunged into the river. The ATR 72-600 plane grazed a taxi as it crashed, leaving two people in hospital with injuries.

The chief executive of TransAsia, Chen Xinde, bowed at a news conference as he offered a "deep apology".

"We want to apologise again. We are very sorry. TransAsia Airways will do its utmost to help our passengers, the injured, as well as the families of the passengers on board," he said.

"We will deploy all our resources to help in the rescue efforts as well as in the aftermath of this incident."

TransAsia Airways, Taiwan's third biggest airline by fleet size, is reeling from its second major accident in less than a year. This comes just seven months after a TransAsia ATR 72-500 crashed while trying to land at Penghu Island, killing 48 of the 58 passengers and crew on board.