This is the dreadful moment 15 people were killed after a plane crashed into a river in Taiwan.
The Taiwanese flight carrying 58 plummeted into a river on the island’s capital of Taipei after it turned on its side midair and clipped an elevated roadway.
It is understood 30 are still missing.
Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defence said it had sent 165 people and eight boats to the riverside rescue scene, joining fire department rescue crews.
The flight had taken off from Sungshan Airport and was on its way to the outlying Taiwan-controlled Kinmen islands.
Civil aviation officials said the flight took off at 10.53am and lost contact with controllers two minutes later.
Wu Jun-hong, a Taipei Fire Department official who was co-ordinating 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,”
“Those in the front of the plane are likely to have lost their lives.”
Another ATR 72 operated by the same Taipei-based airline crashed in the outlying Taiwan-controlled islands of Penghu last July, killing 48 at the end of a typhoon for reasons that are still under investigation.
Terrifying video shows Taiwan plane crashing into road bridge
