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TAIWAN RESCUERS SCOURED a river for 12 people still missing from a TransAsia plane crash today, as the pilot, who died in the crash, was hailed a hero for apparently battling to avoid hitting built-up areas.
Hundreds of rescuers in boats, as well as divers and soldiers mounted the search in the chilly waters, as the death toll rose to 31 with more bodies located including those of the pilot and co-pilot, authorities said.
The TransAsia ATR 72-600 crashed shortly after take-off from Songshan airport in Taipei Wednesday, hitting an elevated road as it banked sidelong towards the Keelung River, leaving a trail of debris including a smashed taxi.
In an operation overnight large parts of the plane’s fuselage were lifted from the river, enabling rescuers to recover bodies trapped inside, while divers Thursday battled strong currents to search downstream for more victims.
Pilot Liao Chien-tsung was applauded by aviation experts for apparently steering the turboprop plane, which had 53 passengers and five crew on board, away from populated areas, potentially avoiding more deaths and damage.
“The pilot apparently made a conscious effort to avoid further and unnecessary casualties by ditching in the river. It was a very courageous move,” Hong Kong-based aviation analyst Daniel Tsang told AFP.
Condolences
Emotional citizens posted their praise and condolences on social media sites.
“I believe the pilot managed to steer the plane away from high-rise buildings, he is a hero,” Gin Oy, a writer and actress, said on her Facebook page.
The Apple Daily newspaper ran a front-page story thanking “the pilot for saving Taipei”.
“We are proud of him. He was very brave to avoid the buildings,” Liao’s aunt told reporters at a funeral home in Taipei.
Friends and relatives described the 41-year-old Liao as a diligent and family-loving man from a humble background who studied hard to join the air force before becoming a commercial pilot.
President Ma Ying-jeou paid his respects to the victims and comforted their families at a funeral home in Taipei and visited the wounded at several hospitals.
Near the river, dozens of weeping relatives called out the names of their loved who perished as monks chanted scripts and waved the victims’ clothes in front the plane’s wreckage in a religious ritual to guide the spirits home.
Condolences from abroad poured in.
Pope Francis sent a message to Taiwan’s archbishop Hung Shan-chuan offering prayers for the dead and “strength and comfort” for the injured and mourning.
The United States’ de facto embassy in Taiwan also offered its condolences.
An investigation into the cause of the crash is underway, with aviation experts from France and Canada expected to arrive in Taiwan this week, Taiwanese authorities said.
Toddler Escapes
Tales of miracle escapes have emerged. Television footage showed a father cuddling his toddler son as they were taken to shore by boat after being rescued Wednesday.
Together with the child’s mother, the family had switched seats on the plane “out of a hunch” that saved their lives, the United Daily News said, quoting a family friend.
Their new seats put them next to a crack in the plane after it crashed and Lin was able to pull his wife to safety and then revive his son after spotting him in the water, blue and unresponsive.
“My brother just can’t live without his son. When he found him, after lying in cold water for three minutes and with no signs of breathing or heartbeat, he performed CPR. He brought his son back,” survivor Lin’s brother Lin Ming-yi told reporters.
A 72-year-old man who helped several fellow passengers unbuckle their seat belts to get to safety recounted his story on local TV.
“I sensed that there was something wrong with the engine soon after take-off and told the girl sitting next to me to quickly unbuckle her safety belt … and then (the plane) went down,” soldier Huang Chin-shun told ETTV cable news channel.
The accident, which occurred on a domestic route to the island of Kinmen, was the second fatal crash for TransAsia since July.
Desperate crew shouted “Mayday! Mayday! Engine flameout!” as the plane plunged out of the sky, according to a recording thought to be the final message from the cockpit to the control tower.
Among the 15 survivors of the crash, 26-year-old flight attendant Huang Jin-ya was lucky for the second time — she was supposed to be on the plane that crashed in July, killing 48, but switched her shift, according to local reports.
A total of 31 Chinese nationals were onboard the plane, with at least 16 dead, 12 missing and three injured, the government said.
Some of the grieving relatives arrived in Taiwan on Thursday.
Local media reported that among the Chinese victims, 26-year-old tour leader Wang Qinghuo from Xiamen was due to get married on Sunday.
China’s minister for Taiwan affairs Zhang Zhijun has postponed a scheduled visit to the island of Kinmen following the accident, a statement from Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council said.
The Civil Aeronautics Administration has grounded a total of 22 ATR planes from two Taiwanese airlines for safety checks following the accident.
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under no circumstances should he be handed to usa
@joe doyle: Why there they are supposed to be the good guys nothing will happen to him surely.
@joe doyle: He’s a dreadful individual he conned his friends into losing half a million when they put up his bail then did a runner, he’s a spy & and a traitor putting lives at risk he deserves never to see the light of day again.
@Joe Thorpe: He’s only guilty of telling the truth. Western domination would come tumbling down if that kind of honesty became common place – gotta crush him to make sure other journalists tow the party line.
This comment from @tom_fowdy on twitter is very apt.
“Western propaganda is based on the following principles:
1) We are morally superior and enlightened
2) X country is doing horrible things
3) We need to act and do something about it
And because of point 1, 2 and 3 concurrently are believed every single time.”
@Joe Thorpe:
You are badly linformed.
He has committed no crime. The Swedes have dropped the false rape charge which the US/USA were using to get him to the US, where he faced charges of treason for revealing the war crimes of the US/NATO warmongers.
Now he will be extradited to the US, where he will not get a fair trial and be either “suicided” or murdered slowly by solitary confinement and torture. Guantanamo still exists, there are prisioners there without trial for years.
The US have promised a fair trial and no restrictive measures against him. But if he contravenes any of the conditions of his imprisonment according to the head of the CIA, these guarantees will fall.
The same CIA which investigated assassinating Assange in the past.
@Joe Thorpe:
It is you who is a dreadful individual, what have you done for mankind except make silly remarks?
Julian Assange has more courage, brains and integrity than you had or will have.
Stop watching Sky New/reading the Sun or other British rubbish and try to get information from sources that are not British government mouthpieces.
That includes many Irish media.
Will they be handing over the diplomats wife?
@motojack: She will be under trial in the US and conclusion will be that motorcyclist caused the accident by driving on the wrong side of the road.
@motojack: That was the problem, she and her husband weren’t diplomats and didn’t have diplomatic immunity. I can understand how it can happen as I’ve driven in the US many times. Your natural tendency is to drive on the side you are used to, you really have to pay attention. Why she just didn’t stay and deal with it I don’t know, she probably would have been given a slap on the hand and a driving ban.
@Jim Buckley Barrett: not likely. She would have had to do time more than likely. Britain is draconian when it comes to road deaths or even crashes that are non fatal.
@Jim Buckley Barrett: Both she and her husband are intelligence agents and apparently pretty senior ones . The Americans are not going to allow people like that to be locked up.
@motojack:
No way! The Yanks never hand over their citizens, but expect other countries to do so. Usually the Brits trip themselves over to facilitate them.
Some years ago a US fighter plane flew UNDER the cables of a cabin taking skiers up a mountain in Italian, killing all on board.
The four US military were whipped out of Italy immediately, and never faced charges.
Julian Assange has killed nobody, he has merely exposed the hypocrisy and lies of the “Western” governments, including Ireland, and their war crimes.;
For this he is being punished, also to send a message to other journalists that the truth must not be let out, ever.
@Colin Conlan:
Brilliant!
Yet they won’t send Anne Sacoolas back for killing Harry Dunne and fleeing the country. Disgraceful double standards.
@Mark Brown: https://youtu.be/LVwby34mR6E?t=200
On the basis of ‘four light assurances from US authorities’… Oh yeah, like they have a good track record there.
Shocking and sad day for so called ‘Freedom of speech’ and ‘Democracy’…. And all at the hands of the 2 biggest so called ‘crusaders’ of the ‘free’ world
Freedom of speech is great, until you say what “they” don’t like.
@Kieran Woods: Freedom of speech is only to particular case of saying something irrelevant to a deaf audience. Everything else draws penalty by some law.
The rte website claims the case against Assange is because he “attempted to obtain and disclose national defence information” no mention that Assange actually made public war crimes by US in Iraq, rte is Orwellian to the core in their mastery of language for hiding relevant facts
Imagine he’s only crime was making govts look bad. Telling everyone the truth at what was going and govts all over the world were scrambling. At the end of the day what the US did was illegal and they committed mass murder in the middle east likewise as they had done in Vietnam and anyone who exposed them was the enemy.
There was a doc leaked where it showed the UK GCHQ were tapping all Ireland’s internet cables and harvesting all the private data so they could spy on Irish citizens. Somehow our govt was ok with that!
Lap-dog and Poodle come to mind.
He has severe mental health issues. This is a death sentence.
The objective here is to slowly drive Assange to complete breakdown, it will be dragged out over years to achieve this end, any pretence that the British judicial system is totally independent of the political establishment is farcical.
It will serve as a warning to any future whistleblowers what awaits them if they expose war crimes by any western nation.
The absolute craven attitude from the msm is hardly surprising, case gets coverage only from the legal proceedings point of view but no pressure from the media on politicians to protect whistleblowers that are doing the job the msm are not allowed to do, the EU with all their pretence about protecting human rights are about as silent in this matter as they are regards the war in Yemen and the butchering of a journalist by the Saudis, it’s easy speak out againts clowns like Lukashenko but not good oul uncle sam and buddies, a sad day for proper journalism and the rights of individuals against persecution by militaristic states.
It is easy now for UK to rule subjectively on what they want, as ECJ is out of the way.
Frightening and despicable. You think we live in an enlightened, free society in the West, but do something big enough the establishment doesn’t like and see what happens.
It will be interesting to see if the US adhere to their assurances … serving his sentence in Australia , for example…. that would be hard to swallow as he’s an arch enemy to their LEAs they want an example made of him , harsh sentence and incarceration , as if they hadn’t already done this already to others whistleblowers .
A disgraceful decision but also a totally predictable one. The timing during Biden’s Summit for Democracy is ironic seeing as Freedom of The Press is such a big part of that event.
And we still let state killers land in Shannon and head off to the middle east to indiscriminately murder men women and children.
Will the sht just hit the fan….. And the walls and got smeared.
Great news.
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