A plane carrying mostly Chinese tourists has crashed into a river in Taiwan, killing several people.
Dramatic video footage emerged showing the TransAsia Airways plane clipping a bridge as it came down shortly after take-off from a Taipei airport.
The plane, carrying 58 people, has broken up and the fuselage is lying half-submerged in the Keelung River. The number of dead is still unclear.
Another TransAsia plane crashed in bad weather last July, killing 48 people. Rescuers on boats have cut the plane open to gain access to several people still trapped inside.
The ATR-72 turbo-prop plane had just taken off from Taipei Songshan Airport and was heading to the Kinmen islands, just off the coast of the south-eastern Chinese city of Xiamen.
Taiwan’s Civil Aeronautics Administration said the last communication from one of the pilots had been: “Mayday, mayday, mayday.” Flight controllers lost contact with the plane at 10:55 local time (02:55 GMT).
Footage of the plane filmed from inside passing cars showed it banking sharply, hitting a taxi and clipping the bridge before crashing into the river.
“I saw a taxi, probably just metres ahead of me, being hit by one wing of the plane,” an eyewitness told local media.
“The plane was huge and really close to me. I’m still trembling.”
Reports on the number of dead varied, with some saying at least 16 people lost their lives. Several people suffered injuries and some were still unaccounted for.

TransAsia Airways
Founded in 1951 as Taiwan’s first private civilian-operated domestic airline, later expanded to overseas routes
Has about 20 planes in its fleet – a mix of Airbus and dual-propeller ATR planes
Gained popularity due to its low-cost tickets
Flies many routes between Taiwan and mainland China, and to parts of South East Asia

TV footage showed rescuers standing on large sections of broken wreckage trying to pull passengers out of the plane with ropes.
Those that were rescued were helped into dinghies and taken to shore. Some were then placed on stretchers and taken to hospital.
But officials said some passengers were still trapped inside the wreckage, which appeared to be upside down.
“We’re asking the public works department for heavy cranes to be deployed in the hope that the body of the plane can be lifted up,” said Wu Jun-Hong, assistant director of Taipei’s fire department.
“At the moment, we think a lot of the trapped people are in the head of the plane.” The plane was carrying five crew and 53 passengers, including 31 tourists from the south-eastern Chinese city of Xiamen.
The BBC’s Cindy Sui in Taipei says the Chinese tourists could have been on their way home as many people come to Taiwan through Kinmen island.
TransAsia chief Chen Xinde offered a “deep apology” in a televised news conference, but said his planes had been “under thorough scrutiny” since mid-2014.
“Both our planes and our flight safety system are following strict regulations, so we also want to know what caused the new plane model to crash, but I don’t want to speculate,” he said.

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