All 189 on board crashed Indonesian jet feared dead

Yahoo – AFP, Harry PEARL, October 29, 2018

Debris apparently from the crashed jet was pulled out of the water (AFP Photo/Handout)

All 189 passengers and crew aboard a crashed Indonesian Lion Air jet were likely killed in the accident, rescue officials said Monday, as they announced they had found human remains and would continue the grim search through the night.

The Boeing-737 MAX, which went into service just months ago, vanished from radar 13 minutes after taking off from Jakarta, plunging into the Java Sea moments after it had asked to return to the Indonesian capital.

Flight JT 610 sped up as it suddenly lost altitude in the minutes before it disappeared, according to flight data tracking websites, with authorities saying witnesses saw the jet plunge into the water.

"The victims that we found, their bodies were no longer intact and it's been hours so it is likely 189 people have died," search and rescue agency operational director Bambang Suryo Aji told reporters.

Some 40 divers are part of about 150 personnel at the scene, authorities said, with wreckage from the jet some 30 to 40 metres deep in the water.

Earlier, video footage apparently filmed at the scene of the crash showed a slick of fuel on the surface of the water and pictures showed what appeared to be an emergency slide and bits of wreckage bearing Lion Air's logo.

Distraught family of passengers gathered at Pangkal Pinang airport, where the

plane had been headed (AFP Photo/HADI SUTRISNO)

The carrier acknowledged that the jet had previously been grounded for unspecified repairs.

"It's really a mystery what could have happened," said Greg Waldron, Asia managing editor of industry publication Flightglobal.

The plane had been en route to Pangkal Pinang city, a jumping off point for beach-and-sun seeking tourists on nearby Belitung island, when it dropped out of contact around 6:30 am (2330 GMT).

Former professional cyclist Andrea Manfredi was a passenger on the flight, the Italian foreign ministry said.

"The memory of a serious guy and in love with his sport, will remain indelible in the minds of all those who, in these years, have had the good fortune to know him," Bardiani-CSF, Manfredi's former team, said in a statement.

'He called this morning'

Footage from Pangkal Pinang's main airport showed families of passengers crying and hugging each other, with some calling out to god.

A fuel slick was spotted at the site where the Lion Air plane is believed to have 

crashed into the sea (AFP Photo/Handout)

"This morning he called asking about our youngest son," said a sobbing Ermayati, referring to her 45-year-old husband Muhammed Syafii, who was on board.

There were 178 adult passengers, one child, two infants, two pilots and six cabin crew aboard the flight, according to Indonesia's National Transportation Safety Committee (NTSC).

About 20 finance ministry employees were on the plane including half a dozen colleagues of Sony Setiawan, who missed check in for a flight he took weekly due to bad traffic.

"I know my friends were on that flight," he told AFP.

Setiawan said he was only informed about his lucky escape after he arrived in Pangkal Pinang on another flight.

"My family was in shock and my mother cried, but I told them I was safe, so I just have to be grateful."

Lion Air said the plane had only gone into service in August.

The pilot and co-pilot had more than 11,000 hours of flying time between them and had recent medical checkups and drug testing, it added.

Lion Air chief Edward Sirait said the plane had an unspecified technical issue fixed in Bali before it was flown back to Jakarta.

A search and rescue operation swung into action just after the plane 

disappeared from radar (AFP Photo/Resmi MALAU)

"Engineers in Jakarta received notes and did another repair before it took off" on Monday, Sirait told AFP, calling it "normal procedure".

Poor safety record

US-based Boeing said it was "deeply saddened" by news of the crash.

Boeing reportedly suspended release of the 737 MAX just days out from its first commercial delivery last year due to an engine issue, according to airline safety and product review site airlineratings.com.

It said the engines were a product of a joint venture between US-based General Electric and France's Safran Aircraft Engines.

Earlier this year, Lion Air announced it was buying 50 Boeing 737 MAX 10 jets for $6.24 billion.

Indonesia's air travel industry is booming, with the number of domestic passengers growing significantly over the past decade, but it has acquired a reputation for poor regulation and its airlines had previously been banned from US and European airspace.

In August 2015, a commercial passenger aircraft operated by Indonesian carrier Trigana crashed in Papua due to bad weather, killing all 54 people on board.

A year earlier poor maintenance and inadequate pilot response was blamed for an AirAsia plane crash which cost 162 lives.

Lion, a low-cost airline which has engaged in a huge expansion in recent years, has been involved in a number of incidents including a fatal 2004 crash and a collision between two Lion Air planes at Jakarta's Soekarno-Hatta airport.

Russia's Tu-154 plane: a history of accidents

Yahoo – AFP, December 25, 2016

File photo shows a Tupolev-154 (TU-154) similar to a military plane which
crashed in the Black Sea as it made its way to Syria with 92 people
onboard (AFP Photo/Alexander NEMENOV)

Moscow (AFP) - The Tupolev aircraft maker's Tu-154, the type of plane that crashed Sunday in the Black Sea with 92 people on board, is an ageing Russian workhorse whose record is plagued with accidents.

Although Russian commercial airlines are no longer known to use the plane -- which first flew in 1972 and went out of production in 1994 -- it is still used by the military.

In spite of the tragedy, Russia's Industry and Trade Minister Denis Manturov told local news agencies Sunday that permanently retiring all Tu-154 aircraft would be "premature."

Similar in size and performance to a Boeing 737, with a range of 4,000 kilometres (2,500 miles), the Tu-154 can carry between 155 and 180 passengers at a cruising speed of 850 kilometres an hour.

Russia has experienced several accidents involving the plane, including some that date back to the 1990s.

On January 1, 2011, a Tu-154B belonging to a commercial airline burst into flames before take-off on a runway at an airport in Russia's Far North. Three people were killed and more than 30 injured in the incident, which led to some of the planes being grounded.

On December 4, 2014, a Tu-154 passenger plane broke apart after rolling off the runway at Moscow's Domodedovo airport, killing two people.

Tupolev Tu-154 (AFP Photo)

On April 10, 2010, a Tu-154 carrying Polish president Lech Kaczynski and other top Polish officials came down in fog near the Russian city of Smolensk, and all 96 people on board perished.

The delegation was heading to a ceremony in Russia's Katyn forest for thousands of Polish army officers killed by Soviet secret police in 1940 -- a massacre the Kremlin had denied until 1990.

In July 2009, a Tu-154 belonging to the Iranian company Caspian Airlines crashed in northern Iran, killing all 168 on board.

In August 2006, a Tupolev of the Russian Pulkovo airline crashed in Ukraine after trying to fly above a storm, killing 170 people.

In February 2012, a Tu-154 on an Iranian domestic flight crashed in the southwest of the country, killing 117.

Other major accidents involving the Tu-154 were in July 2001 in the Siberian city of Irkutsk, with 145 dead, and in August 1996 on the Norwegian island of Spitzbergen, killing 141.

Russia's Tu-154 plane: a history of accidents https://t.co/RhPyByzY9m pic.twitter.com/7MIGZutrVF

— AFP news agency (@AFP) December 25, 2016

Bolivia shuts down Colombia crash airline

Yahoo – AFP, Rodrigo Almonacid, Dec 1, 2016

Rescue teams recover of the bodies from the LAMIA airlines charter flight that
crashed in the mountains of Cerro Gordo, municipality of La Union, Colombia, on
November 29, 2016 carrying members of the Brazilian football team Chapecoense
Real (AFP Photo/Raul Arboleda)

Medellín (Colombia) (AFP) - The Bolivian charter airline behind a plane crash that killed 71 people in Colombia was shut down Thursday, as shock grew over a harrowing recording of the pilot's final minutes without fuel.

Bolivia said it had suspended charter company LAMIA's permit and ordered an investigation into its operations.

It also sacked the executive staff of both the civil aviation authority and the airports administrator for the duration of the probe.

The government did not explain the decision.

But it came as investigators examine pilot error and air traffic control problems as possible factors in the Monday night crash, which killed most of Brazilian football club Chapecoense Real and 20 journalists traveling with them to a championship match.

LAMIA, which specializes in flying Latin American football teams, has ferried local clubs and national sides around the region, with players including superstar Lionel Messi.

Investigators are trying to piece together the last moments of the doomed flight, which slammed into the mountains outside Medellin with 77 people on board, six of whom miraculously survived.

Details of the jet's terrifying end emerged in an audio recording aired by Colombian media in which the pilot radioed frantically that he was out of fuel.

In the recording, pilot Miguel Quiroga contacts the control tower seeking priority to land.

The operator tells him he will have to wait seven minutes for another plane to land first.

"We have a fuel emergency, ma'am, that's why I am asking you for it at once, full stop," the pilot replied.

The timeline was not immediately clear, but shortly after the pilot radioed: "Ma'am, Lima-Mike-India 2933 is in total failure, total electrical failure, without fuel."

The operator responded: "Runway clear and expect rain on the runway Lima-Mike-India 2933. Firefighters alerted."

The pilot is heard asking: "Vectors, ma'am, vectors to the runway." Vectors is the term for the navigation service provided to planes by air traffic control.

The operator is heard giving him directions, and asking his altitude.

"Nine thousand feet, ma'am. Vectors! Vectors!"

Those were Quiroga's last words to the control tower.

Fans of Brazil's Chapecoense football club take part in a tribute to their players

killed in a plane crash (AFP Photo/DOUGLAS MAGNO)

Six-month wait

Colombia's civil aeronautics agency said the time sequence of the tape was "inexact," and had no comment on the content of the recording.

But the agency's air safety chief, Freddy Bonilla, confirmed at a news conference that the plane was out of fuel at the moment of impact.

Bonilla said international rules require aircraft to maintain fuel in reserve when flying between airports, and that the LAMIA plane had failed to do so.

The British Aerospace 146 jet was scheduled to make a refueling stop in Bogota, but skipped the Colombian capital and headed straight for Medellin, reported Bolivian newspaper Pagina Siete, citing a representative of the airline.

Civil aviation director Alfredo Bocanegra said it would take investigators at least six months to analyze the black box recorders recovered from the plane and reach a conclusion on the cause of the crash.

Bodies identified

Investigators finished identifying the victims' bodies Thursday.

A representative for the funeral homes preparing them said they would be sent home to Brazil, Bolivia, Venezuela and Paraguay late Thursday or early Friday.

Cinderella-story club Chapecoense had been traveling to what would have been the biggest match in its history, the finals of South America's second-largest club tournament, the Copa Sudamericana.

Tearful tributes to the club were held Wednesday evening, at the time the match was to have been played, in Medellin and the team's hometown, Chapeco in southern Brazil.

Both stadiums were packed to capacity.

Mourners held candles in the air in Chapeco as the handful of remaining players from the team took to the pitch in tears.

A minute's silence for Chapecoense will be held before every Champions League and Europa League game next week, UEFA said Thursday.

People participate in a tribute to the players of Brazilian team Chapecoense

killed in a plane crash in the Colombian mountains (AFP Photo/LUIS ACOSTA)

Caring for survivors

Six people survived the crash.

Bolivian crew members Ximena Suarez and Erwin Tumiri are expected to be released from hospital Thursday, an official said.

Chapecoense defender Alan Ruschel was in critical but stable condition in intensive care after having back surgery.

Journalist Rafael Henzel and player Helio Neto were listed as stable.

Goalkeeper Jakson Follmann was meanwhile set to undergo surgery again, after having his right leg amputated.

Related Article:

Football mourns as plane crash kills Brazilian players

Crashed Indonesian plane found 'destroyed', no survivors

Yahoo – AFP, Levi Cunding, 18 Aug 2015

Indonesian rescuers search through wreckage of the Trigana Air ATR 42-300

 twin-turboprop plane at the crash site in the mountainous area of Oksibil on

August 18, 2015 (AFP Photo/STR)

A plane that crashed in eastern Indonesia was Tuesday found "completely destroyed" with the bodies of all 54 passengers and crew strewn amid the wreckage in a fire-blackened jungle clearing, officials said.

Rescuers finally reached the debris of the Trigana Air plane, which went down Sunday in Papua province during a short flight in bad weather, after abandoning search efforts a day earlier due to mountainous terrain, thick fog and rain.

Indonesian search and rescue personnel

at the command post at Sentani airport in

 Jayapura communicate with the ground

 rescue team at the plane crash site in 

Oksibil on August 18, 2015 (AFP Photo/

Indrayadi Thamrin)

The black box flight data recorders, which could provide clues about the cause of the crash, were retrieved. Money -- some of it burnt -- was also found among the wreckage of the plane, which had been transporting 6.5 billion rupiah ($470,000) in cash.

"The plane has crashed, it is completely destroyed," Bambang Soelistyo, head of the country's search and rescue agency, said of the ATR 42-300 plane after teams reached the site in the morning.

"Everything was in pieces and part of the plane is burnt."

It is just the latest air accident in Indonesia, which has a poor aviation safety record and has suffered major disasters in recent months, including the crash of an AirAsia plane in December with the loss of 162 lives.

Photos of the site showed a fire-blackened clearing in thick jungle strewn with debris. The twin-turboprop plane was carrying 54 people -- 49 passengers and five crew -- and officials said all the bodies had been found.

The team of about 100 rescuers, including soldiers and police, who reached the crash site found some bodies were not intact while others were badly burnt. All those on board were believed to be Indonesians.

Authorities were planning to airlift the bodies from the site by helicopter but efforts were suspended on Tuesday afternoon due to thick fog, Soelistyo told reporters in Jayapura, Papua's capital.

A fresh attempt would be made Wednesday.

'Unpredictable weather'

The money on the plane, which was being carried in four bags by postal officials, was government social assistance funds to be distributed to poor families in the remote community of Oksibil where the plane had been heading.

The wreckage from a Trigana Air ATR 42-300 twin-turboprop scattered among 

trees in the mountainous area of Oksibil district, in Indonesia's Papua province

(AFP Photo/Basarnas)

Soelistyo did not say how much cash had been found, but he told reporters: "I have instructed the team there to secure all the items, including the money, to be handed over to the authorities as evidence."

The plane had set off from Jayapura on what was supposed to be a 45-minute flight to Oksibil.

But it lost contact with air traffic control about 10 minutes before reaching its destination, soon after the crew requested permission to start descending in heavy cloud and rain to land.

Captain Beni Sumaryanto, Trigana Air's service director of operations, said "unpredictable weather and mountainous terrain" had likely caused the accident, adding that the plane was in good condition and the pilot experienced.

View galleryGrieving relatives of passengers on board the ill-fated …

Grieving relatives of passengers on board the ill-fated Trigana Air ATR 42-300 plane wait for inform …

Small aircraft are commonly used for transport in remote and mountainous Papua and bad weather has caused several accidents in recent years.

Last week a Cessna propeller plane crashed in Papua's Yahukimo district, killing one person and seriously injuring the five others on board. Officials suspect that crash was also caused by bad weather.

Indonesian rescuers hold wreckage fragments from the Trigana Air ATR 42-300

 twin-turboprop plane from the crash site in the mountainous area of Oksibil on

August 18, 2015 (AFP Photo/STR)

Trigana Air, a small domestic Indonesian airline, has experienced a string of serious incidents and is banned from flying in European Union airspace.

Last year's AirAsia crash was one of two major air accidents that Indonesia has suffered in the past year alone.

In June an Indonesian military plane crashed into a residential neighbourhood in the city of Medan, exploding in a fireball and killing 142 people.

The aviation sector in Indonesia is expanding fast but airlines are struggling to find enough well-trained personnel to keep up with the rapid growth in the archipelago of more than 17,000 islands.

Search team remains hopeful of finding MH370: coordinator

Want China Times, Xinhua 2015-03-08

Family members of the missing passengers hold up paintings at a prayer
event at the Yonghe Temple in Beijing, March 8. (Photo/CNS)

Exactly one year ago, a Malaysia Airlines aircraft took off from Kuala Lumpur airport and disappeared in the darkness of the sky, leaving the world with one of the greatest aviation mysteries in history. Twelve months on, search vessels are working non-stop in the heart of the southern Indian Ocean, hoping to bring an answer to the tragedy.

Four ships, each carrying a crew of 35, are working in 12-hour shifts to scan the ocean floor. Every 45 days, the ships go back to Freemantle in Western Australia to stock up on supplies. It takes them six days of sailing from the search area to Freemantle and another six days to go back.

So far, 26,000 square kilometers of area has been searched and not a single piece of debris has been found.

"I am frustrated like the families. And the rest of the team also. Having said that though, we still have over 50% of the search area to go. We still have a sizable area that we haven't searched. We need to remember that," said Judith Zielke, chief coordinator of the Joint Agency Coordination Center for the search of the MH370 (JACC).

That 260,000 square kilometer area includes the 60,000 square kilometer priority search area, which has been set by a group of international experts based on the "handshake" data provided by the satellite provider Inmarsat. The widest feasible search area is 1.1 million square kilometers.

"The wide search area, which is 1.1 million square kilometer, has remained the same since April last year. It's based on original 'handshake' information released by Inmarsat. That's factual information. It shows where the aircraft turned and it turned south. That can't be questioned: it's factual information," Zielke said.

"We are confident the aircraft is in that wide search area of 1.1 million square kilometers. Our challenge is to find where within that huge area. The size and scale of the search is unprecedented. This has not been attempted before. We are talking about an area that ultimately is about two thirds the size of the Australian continent. The area we are searching at the moment is slightly smaller than Tasmania."

The most recent update to the search area were announced in October last year. Since then, more analysis work has been done, Zielke said.

Despite the fact that no debris has been found, the crew on the ships are highly motivated by keeping regular contact with families through the JACC, whose job is to "keep the communications flow."

Zielke said JACC receives emails every day, expressing gratitude for what Australia is doing. Australia committed AU$90 million (US$70.2 million) to the search, of which AU$60 million has been paid directly for vessels and equipment aiding in underwater search activities. Malaysia matched Australia's contribution.

Zielke wouldn't predict what moves would be taken if the search of the remaining half of the priority area is completed in May with no luck, saying it is for the governments of Malaysia, China and Australia to decide, taking into account many possible scenarios.

"You may be aware that Australia recently, through Australian Transport Safety Board, went out with a tender process and ask for the expression of interest from firms around the world to give an indication of what equipment and vessels would be required for a recovery operation. Obviously, that information has been thought to be able to inform decisions for governments in relation to what would be undertaken in a recovery scenario just as we are also planning for decisions on other scenarios moving forward as well."

"At this moment, we are focused on locating in the current priority area. We have over 50% of the area still to be finished. I remain hopeful we can locate the aircraft in that area," she said.

Related Article:

One year on, international team 'committed' to finding Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370

Australia, Malaysia, Indonesia to Trial New Jet Tracking System

'It's going to make, I think, the monitoring of aircraft over these oceanic areas much more effective'

Jakarta Globe – AFP, Mar 01, 2015

Indonesia Search And Rescue vessel navigation tools display a searching
 spot area in the Indian Ocean during a s search operation for the missing
Malaysian Airlines plane flight MH370 on March 15, 2014. (EPA Photo)

Sydney. Australia on Sunday said it was trialling a “world first” system with Malaysia and Indonesia that increases the tracking of aircraft over remote oceans, allowing authorities to quickly react to abnormal situations such as the disappearance of MH370.

It raises the minimum tracking rate for planes flying over remote oceans to 15 minutes from current intervals of 30 to 40 minutes.

The technology “can increase realtime monitoring should an abnormal situation arise,” Australian Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss said.

“In a world first, all three countries will trial a new method of tracking aircraft through the skies over remote oceanic areas,” Truss told reporters.

“Now this initiative adapts existing technology used by more than 90 percent of long-haul passenger aircraft and would see air traffic control able to respond more rapidly should an aircraft experience difficulty or deviation from its flight plan.”

The announcement came ahead almost a year after Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 went missing en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people on board last March. A massive air and underwater search failing to find any evidence of the plane.

While the system was “not a silver bullet,” it would help to improve current methods of tracking ahead of other solutions being developed, Airservices Australia chairman Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston said.

If an aircraft deviates more than 200 feet from its assigned level or two nautical miles from its expected track, the system would automatically monitor the jet more closely, such as every five minutes or almost continuously, he added.

“This is a big step forward. It’s not just changing things, it’s going to make, I think, the monitoring of aircraft over these oceanic areas much more effective,” the head of the air traffic control body said.

“We will have a datum close to where the aircraft ran into trouble, which is in marked contrast to MH370 where the last known position was in the Malacca Straits.”

The trial, using automatic dependent surveillance contract (ADSC) technology, will commence at the air traffic services center in the eastern city of Brisbane before being extended to Melbourne in the country’s south and to Indonesia and Malaysia.

Long-haul jets that use the existing technology include wide-bodied planes such as Boeing’s 380, 777, 330, 340 and 350 models, Truss said.

Agence France-Presse

At least 25 dead as Taiwan plane plunges into river

Yahoo – AFP, Benjamin Yeh, 4 Feb 2015

A screen grab taken from video provided by TVBS Taiwan, February 4, 2015

 shows a TransAsia ATR 72-600 turboprop plane clipping an elevated motorway

and hitting a taxi (AFP Photo/Tvbs Taiwan)

At least 25 people were killed Wednesday when a passenger plane operated TransAsia Airways clipped an overpass soon after take-off and plunged into a river in Taiwan, the airline's second crash in seven months.

As the rescue operation continued into the night, a crane lifted the rear and central sections of the plane from the water, with one body retrieved from inside.

Rescue personnel work to free

passengers from a TransAsia

ATR 72-600  turboprop plane

that crash-landed into a river

outside Taiwan's capital Taipei

on February 4, 2015 (AFP

Photo/Sam Yeh)

The front part, where 17 people are believed to be trapped, was still in the water.

TransAsia said 16 survivors had been pulled out of the wreckage after the turboprop plane crashed with 58 people onboard. Many of the passengers were mainland Chinese tourists.

Cold weather, poor visibility and rising water levels were hampering the rescue, officials said, admitting they were now "not optimistic" about finding survivors.

Dramatic amateur video footage showed the TransAsia ATR 72-600 hit an elevated road as it banked sidelong towards the Keelung River, leaving a trail of debris including a smashed taxi.

"I saw a taxi, probably just metres ahead of me, being hit by one wing of the plane. The plane was huge and really close to me. I'm still trembling," one witness told TVBS news channel.

An AFP reporter at the scene saw bodies being pulled from the wreckage into the early evening.

Desperate crew members shouted "Mayday! Mayday! Engine flameout!" as the plane plunged out of the sky, according to a recording thought to be the final message from the cockpit to the control tower, played on local television.

Rescue personnel put an injured passenger

 from a TransAsia turboprop plane that

crashed into a river outside Taiwan's capital

 Taipei into an ambulance on February 4, 

2015 (AFP Photo/Sam Yeh)

Aviation officials said they had not released the cockpit recording, suggesting it may have come from amateurs monitoring the radio.

"An engine flameout refers to the engine shutting down in flight," said Daniel Tsang, founder of Hong Kong-based aviation consultancy Aspire Aviation.

"The engine stops producing thrust and the combustion process fails and no longer generates any forward propulsion to the aeroplane."

But Tsang told AFP that pilots were "very well trained" to deal with the failure of one engine and the causes of the accident were likely to be more complex.

It was the second fatal crash involving a TransAsia Airways plane within a few months. A flight operated by the domestic airline crashed in July during a storm, killing 48 people.

Hope fades

Wednesday's accident happened just before 11:00 am (0300 GMT), shortly after Flight GE235 left Songshan airport in northern Taipei en route to the island of Kinmen with 53 passengers and five crew on board.

Six airline officials, including chief executive Peter Chen, bowed in apology at a televised press conference.

Rescue personnel work to free passengers

from a TransAsia ATR 72-600 turboprop

plane that crash-landed into a river outside

Taiwan's capital Taipei, on February 4, 

2015 (AFP Photo/Sam Yeh)

"We would like to convey our apologies to the families (of the victims) and we'd also like to voice huge thanks to rescuers who have been racing against time," said Chen.

In a statement later Wednesday, the airline said that 25 were confirmed dead, with 16 survivors.

Those missing are thought to be trapped inside the submerged front section of the plane.

"As it has been a while and the weather is cold, things are not optimistic, but rescuers will do everything to find and rescue the remaining missing people," said Lin Kuan-cheng from the National Fire Agency.

"Rising water levels and poor visibility underwater has made the work very difficult," added senior rescue official Wu Chun-hung.

There has been no official comment on the cause of the crash, but the black boxes have been retrieved from the French-made aircraft.

France's civil aviation body said Wednesday two of its investigators and four from plane manufacturer ATR were being dispatched to assist Taiwanese authorities with their enquiries.

Desperate rescue

An injured passenger (C) is helped onto

 land by emergency personnel along the

 river bank after a TransAsia ATR 72-600

turboprop plane crash-landed into the

Keelung river outside Taiwan's capital 

Taipei, on February 4, 2015 (AFP Photo/

Sam Yeh)

Rescue boats remained in the water late Wednesday, where the remaining front section of the plane is completely submerged.

Rescuers with flashlights scoured through the rear and central parts of the plane after they were brought to shore by crane.

Earlier in the day survivors had been ferried to safety in dinghies as rescuers tried to pull people out with ropes.

China's Xiamen Daily said on its social media account that the 31 mainlanders on board were part of two tour groups from the eastern Chinese city.

One tour guide now confirmed dead, named as Wang Qinghuo, had been due to marry on Sunday, it added.

Xiamen is in Fujian province, across the Taiwan Strait from the island.

An employee of one of the tour agencies, surnamed Wen, told AFP that it had 15 clients onboard, including three children under 10.

The rest of the passengers and crew were Taiwanese, according to the airline.

Aviation officials said the plane crashed minutes after taking off from Songshan airport, after losing contact with the control tower.

Rescuers lift the wreckage of the TransAsia ATR 72-600 oot of the 

Keelung river at New Taipei City on February 4, 2015 (AFP Photo/Sam Yeh)

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 4,000 hours, he added.

The airline said it had received the plane in April last year and it was the newest model of the ATR.

In last July's crash, the 48 people were killed when another domestic TransAsia flight crashed onto houses during a storm on the Taiwanese island of Penghu.

Related Article:

Pilot of TransAsia plane called 'Mayday' before crash

Aircraft set for minute-by-minute tracking

Yahoo – AFP, Marc Brabant, 31 Jan 2015

All commercial flights worldwide could soon send out an automated signal every
 minute in times of distress to help rescuers find downed aircraft more easily
(AFP Photo/Fabrice Coffrini)

Montreal (AFP) - All commercial flights worldwide could soon send out an automated signal every minute in times of distress to help rescuers find downed aircraft more easily.

The new measures are in response to last year's disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing in what remains one of history's great aviation mysteries.

The aircraft, with 239 people on board, has never been found, nearly a year on.

The new tracking rules, prepared by an industry working group, would be phased in by the end of this year, said the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), a United Nations agency.

The initiative will now be presented to delegates from all 191 ICAO member states at a meeting in Montreal from Monday to Thursday, and "a final proposal" will be submitted to the ICAO Council within six months for ratification.

The measure has unanimous support among ICAO member states, a source said Friday, meaning it is virtually assured to be brought in.

Currently, radar can track a plane, however coverage fades when aircraft are out at sea or the plane is flying below a certain altitude.

Under the new rules, airlines will be required to track their aircraft using a system that gives their location at 15-minute intervals.

If an "abnormal event" is detected, including a change in direction or deviation from a flight path, the signal rate hastens to every minute.

Airlines would be responsible for sharing the data with authorities in cases of emergencies.

"It's the start of tracking (flights) every minute in emergency situations that is the most effective in the short term," the source said.

Following a distress signal, search and rescue teams would be able to zero in on an aircraft within six nautical miles (11 kilometers) of its last known position.

The ICAO will also ask airlines to equip their aircraft with ejectable black boxes. These would float and be more easily retrievable in case of a crash over water.

They will be mandatory on new aircraft built after 2021, the source told AFP.

The ejectable black boxes would be in addition to existing commercial flight data recorders and cockpit voice recorders that continually record flight information.