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Taiwan: TransAsia Airways plane crash leaves 40 dead Taiwan: more than 40 feared dead in TransAsia Airways plane crash
(about 1 hour later)
A TransAsia Airways plane crashed on landing on an island off Taiwan on Wednesday, killing 40 people, China's Xinhua news agency said. Forty-seven passengers are trapped and feared dead after their plane crashed at a Taiwanese airport while trying to land in the wake of typhoon Matmo, the transport minister has said.
Taiwan media said a domestic flight had crashed, killing or injuring more than 40 people. Eleven people are believed to be injured. Earlier, fire officials had said that 51 people had died and seven had been wounded when TransAsia Airways flight GE222 hit the ground as it made a second attempt to land on Penghu amid heavy rain. The island lies between the Chinese mainland and Taiwan.
"It's chaotic on the scene," Jean Shen, director of the civil aviation authorities, said. "The fire department was putting out the flames. They will give us the number of casualties very soon." In a statement, the airline said the flight had been forced to make an emergency landing at Xixi village on Wednesday evening due to bad weather. Pictures posted by Taiwanese media showed the wreckage of a plane amid a badly damaged building.
Xinhua said the accident happened on one of the Penghu islands, also know as the Pescadores. No more details were immediately available. The flight had taken off from Kaohsiung, in the south of Taiwan, bound for Penghu's Magong airport.
Typhoon Matmo hit Taiwan with heavy rains and strong winds on Wednesday, shutting financial markets and schools. Jean Shen, director general of the Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA), said Magong air traffic controllers had lost contact with the flight during its go-around, when it was about 90 metres (300ft) above the ground.
TransAsia Airways is a Taiwan-based airline with a fleet of 23 mostly Airbus aircraft. It mainly operates domestic flights, with Japan, Thailand and Cambodia among its Asian destinations. The Central News Agency reported that the pilot had been asked to wait until 7.06pm before being allowed to make his first attempt at landing.
The Aviation Safety Council has called an emergency meeting to look into the cause of the accident.
The 14-year-old twin engine turboprop ATR-72 was due to take off at 4pm and arrive at Magong at 4.35pm, but did not leave Kaohsiung until 5.45pm, according to Taiwan's Central News Agency. It was another hour and 20 minutes before its initial landing attempt.
According to the Flightradar24 website, TransAsia Airways had cancelled almost all of its flights on Wednesday, presumably because of the bad weather.
The flight had 54 passengers and four crew on board. China's state broadcaster CCTV reported that four of the travellers were children. Taiwanese media said the pilot and co-pilot each had more than 20,000 flying hours on their record.
A spokesman for the Taiwanese president, Ma Ying-jeou, said he had been informed of the crash and was saddened by the tragedy. He had contacted the premier and the cabinet was setting up an emergency control centre.
The defence department had dispatched 200 troops, eight ambulances and two fire trucks to the scene, Taiwan's Now News reported.
Kaohsiung municipal government told Now News it had been in touch with TransAsia and requested the detailed list of passengers and crew members. A team from the CAA, aviation experts and relatives of the victims are due to fly to Magong on Thursday.
Taiwan's weather agency said typhoon Matmo had brought gusts of up to 67mph (108km/h) as it blew through on Wednesday morning, knocking out power to more than 30,000 homes, before moving towards south-east China. Forecasters had warned that heavy rains would continue into the evening.
On the mainland, Fujian province officials said they had evacuated 300,000 people, but the typhoon weakened to a tropical storm as it reached the area.
In 2000, 83 of the 179 on board a Singapore Airlines flight died when it attempted to take off from the wrong runway at Taipei's Chiang Kai-shek international airport during a typhoon.
The worst air crash in Taiwanese history took place two years earlier, again in bad weather, when a China Airlines jet from Bali failed in a first attempt to land at Taipei because of rain and fog, but stalled during the go-round and crashed into houses. All 196 on board and seven people on the ground died.