PENGU ISLANDS, July 24 — Forty-seven people were killed when a passenger plane operated by TransAsia Airways crashed on Taiwan’s outlying island county of Penghu yesterday evening, local officials said.
“It was thunderstorm conditions during the crash,” said Hsi Wen-guang, a spokesman for the Penghu County Government Fire Bureau told Reuters.
The China Times reported that TransAsia Airways flight GE 222, an ATR 72 twin-engine turboprop, was carrying 54 passengers and four crew members. It took off at 5.43pm from the southern city of Kaohsiung.
At 7.06pm the pilot reportedly aborted the aircraft’s initial landing at Penghu’s Magong airport and asked to make a go-around at an altitude of 300 feet.
The plane then lost contact with flight radars and crashed in a nearby village, killing 47 people on board, Reuters reported. Eleven people were injured and were taken to hospital, China Times reported. — Reuters
