The TransAsia ATR 72-600 crashed minutes after takeoff from Songshan airport in Taipei at 10:55 a.m. Wednesday. There was no indication that anything was wrong before the plane suddenly gained altitude and banked sharply to the right.
One of the pilots sent the message “Mayday, Mayday, engine flameout.” and the plane began to descend. The pilots worked to angle the plane toward the river to avoid crashing into the population below and managed to do so. Dramatic footage filmed on a car’s dashcam shows the plane narrowly missing the bridge, with its tail clipping a piece of it just before it plunges into the water.
“Based on the flight path, the pilot deviated and tried to avoid obstacles,” aviation expert Daniel Tsang told AFP reporter Amber Wang. “The pilot apparently made a conscious effort to avoid further and unnecessary casualties by ditching in the river. It was a very courageous move.”
Those actions also managed to save some of the 58 people on the plane — 53 of them passengers and five crew members. At least 15 are known to have survived the crash, 15 more than would have survived had the plane hit a building or crashed into the streets. Thirty-five are confirmed dead, including the pilots, and 8 remain unaccounted for.
A Taiwanese aviation professional told SET News Agency that the pilot was a hero for avoiding buildings and a nearby residential area. “He did all he could do,” Liao Linghui said.
The two dead pilots are Liu Zizhong and Liao Jiangzhong.
