Taiwan races to free passengers trapped in TransAsia crash

AT LEAST nine lives have been lost this morning when TransAsia Airways flight GE235 narrowly missed a road bridge and crash-landed in Taipei’s Keelung River.

While 28 of the 58 passengers on board have been rescued, some 19 people are still unaccounted for, reports Reuters, either trapped beneath the half-sunk debris or missing.

Rescue efforts are underway.

 News agency AFP said the ATR-72 had just arrived in Taiwan in 2014 and was serving a domestic flight when it crashed.

The 58 people on board consisted of five crew members, 51 adults and two children. Taiwan’s tourism bureau has revealed that 31 passengers were from China.

Meanwhile, videos showing flight GE235 dropping dramatically out of the sky sideways and coming dangerously close to a road bridge, where the aircraft nicked its left wing and tail as well as a passing vehicle, have been circulating on social and news media.

Last July, TransAsia’s Airways flight GE222 crash-landed in a residential area near Magong airport in Taiwan’s Penghu island, claiming the lives of 48 travellers, it was later reported.

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