TAIPEI, Taiwan — The pilot on TransAsia Airways Flight 235 said, “Mayday, mayday, engine flameout,” moments before the propjet banked sharply and crashed into a river, aviation officials said Thursday, but they declined to comment on a possible cause of the accident.
Video images of the final moments of airborne Flight 235 — with 58 people aboard, most of them travelers from China — captured on car dashboard cameras do not appear to show any flames as it turned sharply, with its wings going vertical and clipping a taxi and a highway bridge before plunging into the Keelung River on Wednesday, killing at least 31 people. Fifteen people were injured, and the search continued for 12 people still missing.
Taiwan’s Civil Aeronautical Administration and the airline, Taipei-based TransAsia Airways, declined to speculate on causes for the crash at about 10:55 a.m. near the capital city’s downtown airport. The plane’s black box was found overnight. The pilots’ bodies have not yet been recovered.
The ATR 72 propeller jet suddenly banked 90 degrees within two minutes of takeoff and descended on its side into the river.
The taxi driver and a passenger were injured, said TransAsia director Peter Chen.
Speculation cited in local media said the crew may have turned to follow the line of the river to avoid crashing into a high-rise residential area, but Taiwan’s aviation authority said it had no evidence of that.
It was the airline’s second French-Italian-built ATR 72 to crash in the past year. Another ATR 72 operated by the same Taipei-based airline crashed in the outlying Taiwan-controlled islands of Penghu in July, killing 48 at the end of a typhoon for reasons that are under investigation.
Wednesday’s flight had taken off at 11:53 a.m. from Taipei’s downtown Sungshan Airport en route to the outlying Taiwanese-controlled Kinmen islands. The crew issued the mayday call shortly after takeoff, Taiwanese civil aviation authorities said.
Chen said contact with the plane was lost four minutes after takeoff.
He said weather conditions were suitable for flying, and the cause of the accident was unknown.
The accessibility of the crash site should allow for a swift investigation, and an initial report should be available within about a month, said Greg Waldron, Asia managing editor at Flightglobal magazine in Singapore.
