BEIJING (Web Desk) – Rescuers scrambled to pull survivors from the wreckage of a plane that banked to the left, clipped an elevated highway and plunged into a river shortly after takeoff in Taiwan.
A young child was among the passengers ferried to safety from the partially submerged TransAsia twin-engine ATR-72, which had just taken off from the capital, Taipei.
Taiwan’s Civil Aeronautics Agency said 23 of the 58 passengers and crew on board were confirmed dead and 15 rescued, leaving 20 others unaccounted for.
Dramatic video of event showed the plane quickly losing altitude and turning almost 90 degrees to the left as it crossed the highway, clipping a taxi and the road surface with its wing before crashing into the Keelung River.
Teams of rescuers in rubber rafts clustered around the wreckage of the aircraft, according to television pictures from scene. Some survivors swam to safety.
