The race to find 12 missing passengers on a crashed TransAsia Airways plane is continuing amid cold and rainy weather in Taipei.
TransAsia Airways Flight GE235 sent out a mayday shortly after taking off from the Taipei Songshan Airport on Wednesday. It clipped a taxi and the guardrail of a highway overpass before crashing into the Keelung River.
As of late Thursday morning 31 bodies have been found at the crash site. They include those of pilot Liao Chien-tsung, co-pilot Liu Tzu-chung, and flight engineer Hung Ping-chung. 15 of the 58 people on board survived.
Parts of the wreck have been lifted out of the river, but other parts remain submerged. Rescue workers fear that the bodies of the 12 remaining victims may have drifted downstream.
Flight GE235 was an ATR-72 turboprop plane. It was the second fatal crash involving a TransAsia plane in seven months. The previous crash also involved the French-built ATR-72.
On Thursday morning, Taiwan’s aviation regulator grounded all ATR planes. It also ordered all operators of such planes to conduct “special checks” on the aircraft.