Rescuers are scrambling to reach more than 20 people trapped in the wreckage of a passenger plane which clipped a road bridge and plunged into a river outside Taiwan's capital, leaving at least 19 dead.
Miraculously, 15 people survived the crash after the plane lurched between buildings, clipped an overpass with its port-side wing and crashed upside down in the shallow water.
Dramatic pictures taken by a motorist and posted on Twitter showed the plane cartwheeling over the motorway soon after the turboprop ATR 72-600 aircraft took off in apparently clear weather on a domestic flight for the island of Kinmen.
"I've never seen anything like this," a volunteer rescuer surnamed Chen said of the most recent in a series of disasters to hit Asian carriers in the past 12 months.
The crash was caught on a dashboard camera (TheVerge)
Television footage showed survivors wearing life jackets wading and swimming clear of wreckage. Others, including a young child, were taken to shore in inflatable boats.
Emergency rescue officials crowded around the partially submerged fuselage of flight GE235, lying on its side in the river, trying to help those on board.
Taiwan's civil aviation regulator raised the death toll to 19, with 15 injured and 24 missing. China said 31 of its tourists were onboard.
The plane missed apartment buildings by metres, though it was not clear if that was luck or whether the pilot was aiming for the river.
Footage showed a van skidding to a halt on the damaged overpass after barely missing the plane's wing, with small pieces of the aircraft scattered along the road.
The remaining people are thought to be trapped inside the submerged front section of the plane.
Rescuers were trying to lift the front part of the wreckage with cranes on Wednesday afternoon.
"The focus of our work is to try to use cranes to lift the front part of the wreckage, which is submerged under the water and is where most of the other passengers are feared trapped," a rescue official told reporters at the scene.
China's Xiamen Daily said on a verified social media account that there were 31 mainlanders on board, part of two tour groups from the eastern Chinese city.
"All their phones were powered off because they were on board a plane, so we haven't been able to contact them," the daily quoted an unnamed representative of one of the tour agencies as saying.
An employee of one of the tour agencies, surnamed Wen, told AFP that it had 15 clients, including three children under 10, and a tour leader on board.
Rescuers standing on large sections of broken wreckage tried to pull passengers out of the plane with ropes.
Those who were rescued - including two children - were put in dinghies and taken to the shore.
The plane wreckage remained in the middle of the river, surrounded by dinghies.
The cause of the crash was still unknown.
Local media reported that some analysts suspected that one of engines lost power, as the plane failed to gain altitude after taking off from Songshan airport. It crashed minutes later after losing contact with the control tower.
Lin Chih-ming, head of Taiwan's Civil Aeronautics Administration, said the ATR 72-600 was less than a year old and was last serviced just over a week ago.
The pilot had 14,000 flying hours and the co-pilot 4000 hours, Lin said.
The chief executive of TransAsia, Peter Chen, bowed deeply at a televised news conference as he apologised to passengers and crew.
TransAsia's shares closed down 6.9 percent in heavy trade, its biggest percentage decline since late 2011.
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said his government had offered Taiwan any help necessary following the crash.
In last July's crash, the 48 people were killed when another domestic TransAsia flight crashed on to houses during a storm on the Taiwanese island of Penghu.
-With Reuters, AFP
