- TransAsia Airways flight GE 235 crashed in Taipei around 10:45am local time Wednesday.
- The exact number of passengers has not been confirmed by authorities. Some media reports say there were 53 passengers and 5 crew on board, for a total of 58 people onboard. But others have said there were 58 passengers.
- At least two people have died, and some media outlets are reporting larger numbers of fatalities.
The crash was caught on video
Someone driving near the scene of the crash (reportedly Twitter user @Missxoxo168) captured video of the plane with a dashboard camera.
There's another dashboard video of the crash here.
The video shows a van being clipped by the airplane's wing as it flew over. Here's what the vehicle looked like afterwards:
TVBS: Taxi cab was clipped by #GE235 as it descended into river in Taipei. #Taiwan #TransAsia pic.twitter.com/YuvtTl9xUP
— Steve Herman (@W7VOA) February 4, 2015
The taxi driver and his passenger survived the encounter, according to Focus Taiwan.
Rescue operations are under way
At least two people have died, according to a Voice of America reporter in Taiwan. He quotes a Taiwanese cable channel that puts the death toll at 8 people. Reuters quotes a local TV station saying that 9 people have died.
Rescue workers have been working to pull survivors out of the downed plane. There have been about 16 survivors rescued, according to an official briefing quoted by Reuters and the Guardian.
Watch live footage of the rescue effort here:
This is the second TransAsia crash in less than a year
Last July, TransAsia flight 222 crashed, killing 48 of the 58 people on board. The plane went down on Penghu Island, which is in the strait between Taiwan and mainland China. That crash occurred as the plane was attempting to land in heavy rain. The exact cause of last year's crash is still being investigated.