11:27
A Taiwanese passenger aircraft with 58 people on board has crashed into a river outside Taiwan’s capital of Taipei, with rescue efforts underway.
The TransAsia ATR72-600 turboprop plane struck a road
bridge shortly after take-off and plunged into Keelung River on Wednesday,
local media reports said.
According to the reports, at least nine people are
killed and some 18 people have been rescued but first-responders are
attempting to reach the others still trapped inside the aircraft.
The aircraft had just departed from Taipei Songshan
Airport on a domestic flight to the outlying Kinmen Island, off the coast of
southeast China, Taiwan’s Central News Agency (CNA) reported.
Local ETTV channel broadcast footage of the aircraft
banking sharply and striking the bridge before crashing into the river.
Television images further showed images of rescue
workers standing on large sections of the broken wreckage of the plane while
struggling to pull passengers out of the aircraft using ropes.
A TransAsia Airways flight crashed in July 2014 during
stormy weather in Taiwan’s Penghu archipelago, killing 48 passengers.
