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48 dead, 15 injured in Taiwan plane crash
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FORTY-EIGHT people have been confirmed dead and 15 injured in a Taiwan plane crash yesterday, the airliner said in a statement this morning.
TransAsia Airways' Flight GE 222, with 58 people on board, smashed into residential buildings after a failed emergency landing in the outlying island county of Penghu last night, killing 48 people and setting buildings on fire.
Ten injured people on the plane were taken to hospital, the government said. Five people on the ground were injured in the accident.
The plane, a 70-seat ATR 72, crashed near the runway in Penghu, with 54 passengers and four crew on board, Taiwan officials said.
The aircraft took off from the southern city of Kaohsiung, headed for the island of Makong, but crash-landed in Huxi township of Penghu County, the main island of the chain.
“It was thunderstorm conditions during the crash,” said Hsi Wen-guang, a spokesman for the Penghu County Fire Bureau.
“From the crash site we sent 11 people to hospital with injuries. A few empty apartment buildings adjacent to the runway caught fire, but no one was inside at the time and the fire was extinguished,” Hsi said.
About 100 firefighters were sent to the scene, as well as 152 military personnel and 255 police, he said.
According to a Civil Aeronautics Administration official, air traffic control reported that the inclement weather at the time of the crash did not exceed international regulations for landing.
Flight GE222 left Kaohsiung at 4:53pm for Magong on Penghu, according to the head of Taiwan’s Civil Aeronautics Administration, Jean Shen. At 7:06pm, after saying it would make a second attempt at a landing, the plane lost contact with the tower.
Visibility as the plane approached was 1,600 meters, which met standards for landing, and two flights had landed earlier, at 5:34pm and the other at 6:57pm, the agency reported. But it appeared that heavy rain reduced visibility and the plane was forced to pull up and make a second attempt, the fire department said.
Shen said the plane was 14 years old.
Television networks aired footage of TransAsia’s President Chooi Yee-choong bowing in apology.
“We express our deepest apologies to everyone for this unfortunate event,” the executive said.
Typhoon Matmo hit Taiwan yesterday, bringing heavy rain and strong winds, shutting financial markets and schools. It passed the island and headed into China’s mainland, downgraded from typhoon to tropical storm.
TransAsia Airways is a Taiwan-based airline with a fleet of about 23 Airbus and ATR aircraft, operating chiefly short-haul flights on domestic routes as well as to China’s mainland, Japan, Thailand and Cambodia, among its Asian destinations.
In Beijing, Chinese mainland’s Taiwan affairs chief Zhang Zhijun conveyed his condolences.
Zhang sent his sympathy to his Taiwan counterpart Wang Yu-chi over the loss of lives, Xinhua news agency reported.
The passengers included two French nationals, according to Taiwan’s transport authorities. No one from the Chinese mainland was onboard the plane.
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