TransAsia crash: Hero pilots died clutching joystick after steering plane through skyscrapers

A survivor has said the engine 'did not feel right' as soon as it took off

Incredible 'dash cam" footage posted on the internet of plane crash in Taiwan -......At least 12 people have died after a TransAsia Airways plane clipped a bridge and crashed into a river near the Taiwanese capital, Taipei.....Fifty-eight people were onbo

The pilots of TransAsia Flight GE235 are being hailed as heroes for doing “everything they could” to save the doomed plane after their bodies were found still gripping its joystick.

At least 31 people were killed when it crashed into a river shortly after taking off in Taipei, Taiwan, on Wednesday.

Pilot Liao Chien-tsung and his unidentified co-pilot died in the cockpit on impact but were found clutching the controls with their legs badly broken, investigators said.

In their last communication, a pilot shouted “Mayday Mayday, engine flameout”, before the plane was filmed flying on its side, with its wing clipping a motorway flyover and taxi before it plunged upside down into the Keelung River.

Taipei’s mayor said 42-year-old Liao and the co-pilot spent their last moments desperately steering the plane between skyscrapers, apartment blocks and commercial buildings to avoid the total loss of life.

“They were still trying to save this aircraft until the last minute,” Taiwanese media quoted prosecutors involved in the crash investigation as saying.

Fifteen people survived but 12 remain missing. Taiwanese officials have said they have not given up hope of finding them.

Media quoted city officials as saying the death toll would have been much worse if the plane had crashed into any of the buildings it narrowly missed.

The mangled fuselage of a TransAsia Airways commercial plane is dragged to the river bank after it crashed in Taipei, Taiwan (AP)

The mayor of Taipei, Ko Wen-je, called the pilot a hero, adding: “We really have to thank that pilot. He really tried his hardest.”

“The pilot's immediate reaction saved many people,” Chris Lin, the brother of one of the survivors, told reporters.

The turboprop ATR 72-600, which was almost new, was flying from Taipei's Songshan airport to the Taiwanese island of Kinmen.

Investigators have not confirmed the pilot’s last account of an “engine flameout” but a survivor has said something felt wrong immediately after taking off. The aircraft crashed four minutes later.

“There was some sound next to me. It did not feel right shortly after take-off. The engine did not feel right,” 72-year-old Huang Jin-sun told ETTV television from his hospital bed.

He helped four other passengers unbuckle their seatbelts after the plane crashed and began sinking in the water.

Relatives of the victims pray during a Buddhist ritual near the wreckage of TransAsia Airways Flight GE235 on 5 February (REUTERS/River Wang)

“I saw others were drowning,” he said. “If I did not move quickly enough to help them, soon they would be dead.”

Also among the survivors was a family of three, including a two-year-old boy whose heart stopped beating after three minutes underwater. He recovered after receiving CPR.

On board were 31 tourists from China, mainly from the southwestern city of Xiamen.

A local resident walks past the tail section of TransAsia Airways flight GE222

Taiwan's aviation regulator has ordered TransAsia and Uni Air, a subsidiary of EVA Airways Corp, to conduct engine and fuel system checks on the remaining 22 ATR aircraft they still operate.

“Engine flameout” refers to flames being extinguished in the combustion chamber of the engine, so that it shuts down and no longer drives the propeller.

Causes could include a lack of fuel or being struck by volcanic ash, a bird or some other object.

The plane's black boxes were recovered overnight and are likely to provide more clues as divers continue searching for other passengers in the river.