TransAsia crash in Taipei caught on video

[steve58]

Holy cr*p!    :(

At least 23 people were killed Wednesday after a Taiwanese flight with 58 people on board turned onto its side shortly after takeoff, clipped a bridge and crashed into a river in the island's capital of Taipei.

The crash was captured in a dramatic video by a driver who was traveling along Taiwan's busy National Freeway No. 1.

The death toll in the crash of TransAsia Airways Flight GE235 was expected to increase as rescue crews cleared the mostly sunken fuselage in the Keelung River. Teams in rubber rafts clustered around the wreckage, several dozen yards from the shore. Officials said 15 people were rescued with injuries, and 20 were unaccounted for. Thirty-one passengers were from China, Taiwan's tourism bureau said.

The French-Italian-built ATR 72-600 prop aircraft pivoted onto its side with one wing scraping past National Freeway No. 1 just before it plunged into the river, local television images showed. The plane's wing hit a taxi on the freeway, and the driver and a passenger were injured, TransAsia director Peter Chen said.

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2015/02/04/taiwan-plane-crash/

[BanzaiCat]

Yeah, I was just passing by the TV a moment ago and saw the news channel playing that footage and said the same thing out loud. It reminded me of that 747 cargo airliner that crashed in Afghanistan a couple of years ago...RIP.

[Barthheart]

The wing tip actually clips the van in front!!!  :o

[Gusington]

That is insane.

[BanzaiCat]

See how close that TransAsia flight came to hitting those buildings in the background? I bet the pilot was trying to land in the river but I don't know, it looked completely out of control.

[Jarhead0331]

See how close that TransAsia flight came to hitting those buildings in the background? I bet the pilot was trying to land in the river but I don't know, it looked completely out of control.

if you want to get technical, he did land in the river...

Watching the video, you can see the plane banks pretty hard to the left right as it is approaching the buildings. This maneuver helped the plane to avoid the buildings, but also seemed to make the plane's decent much more rapid and out of control. If I was a betting man, I'd say that pilot purposely banked the plane to avoid those buildings and he is a hero. No telling how many lives he saved by doing that.

RIP.

[jejo68]

10 month or so ago they also had a crash with the same airtype, 48 died then  :(

[LongBlade]

Dear lord, that must have been terrifying in that plane. Prayers for the victims and families.

[Centurion40]

Dear lord, that must have been terrifying in that plane. Prayers for the victims and families.

Amen.

[JasonPratt]

Wonder what the video looks like from inside the taxi... not as detailed in many ways certainly, but...

Agree with JH, rolling on his side to avoid the buildings kept it from being worse, but then he also lost lift (more than he was already doing). Super nightmarish.

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

Looks to me more like he stalled from low speed while climbing and lost lift on the left wing.   

[BanzaiCat]

Here's more footage from a car a bit further back from the one that you see above:

http://www.wsj.com/video/driver-captures-moment-transasia-flight-crashed/865965B4-8216-48FE-A2AB-98FFADE15412.html

[MetalDog]

Prayers for the families and those who lost loved ones.  RIP.

[OJsDad]

From what they said on the news, pilot reported an engine flamed out.  Looking at the video, it looks like the left is not under power.

[jomni]

See how close that TransAsia flight came to hitting those buildings in the background? I bet the pilot was trying to land in the river but I don't know, it looked completely out of control.

Yes, he was aiming for the river. Better than crashing into buildings.  That airport they took off from is right smack in the middle of a city.  Looks like the ATR had an engine failure and was quite uncontrollable.