Dramatic footage has emerged of a deadly plane crash showing the moment a flight with 58 people aboard clipped a bridge shortly after takeoff and careened into a shallow river in Taipei.
More than 30 people were killed in the accident and rescue efforts are still ongoing as rescuers cut open the fuselage of the TransAsia Airways plane to reach those trapped inside.
Another view of the crash
The fuselage of the turboprop ATR 72 is mostly submerged on its side and is missing a wing which was damaged when it clipped a bridge over the river.
A taxi traveling on the bridge at the time of the crash also appears to have been damaged.
TV footage of the aftermath show survivors in lifejackets wading clear of the wrecked aircraft and making their way to shore.
The driver of the taxi was injured
Rescuers are using inflatable boats to reach the fuselage and pull people including a young child clear.
Another video shows scattered debris leading to the wreckage of the plane.
Wednesday's flight had taken off from Taipei's downtown Sungshan Airport en route to the outlying Taiwan-controlled Kinmen islands.
Civil aviation officials said the flight took off at 10:53 a.m. and lost contact with controllers two minutes later. Thirty-one passengers were from China, Taiwan's tourism bureau said. Kinmen's airport is a common link between Taipei and China's Fujian province.
Wu Jun-hong, a Taipei Fire Department official who was coordinating the rescue, said the missing people were still in the fuselage or had been pulled downriver, he said.
"At the moment, things don't look too optimistic," Wu told reporters at the scene. "Those in the front of the plane are likely to have lost their lives."
Rescuers were pulling luggage from an open plane door to clear the fuselage, and Wu said they planned to build a pontoon bridge to facilitate those efforts.
It was the second of TransAsia's French-made ATR 72 planes to crash in the past year. Last July, a flight crashed while attempting to land on the island of Penghu off Taiwan's coast, killing 48 people and injuring another 10.
Stormy weather and low visibility were suspected as factors in that crash.
Plane crashes in to river in Taipei
