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TransAsia Airways Flight 235 was a
TransAsia Airways TransAsia Airways (TNA, until January 1992 known by its Chinese-translated name Foshing Airlines;For historical pictures with "Foshing Airlines" on it, see: ) was a Taiwanese airline based in Neihu District in Taipei. Though the company starte ...
domestic flight A domestic flight is a form of commercial flight within civil aviation where the departure and the arrival take place in the same country. Airports serving domestic flights only are known as domestic airports. Domestic flights are generally c ...
from
Taipei Taipei (), officially Taipei City, is the capital and a special municipality of the Republic of China (Taiwan). Located in Northern Taiwan, Taipei City is an enclave of the municipality of New Taipei City that sits about southwest of the ...
to
Kinmen Kinmen, alternatively known as Quemoy, is a group of islands governed as a county by the Republic of China (Taiwan), off the southeastern coast of mainland China. It lies roughly east of the city of Xiamen in Fujian, from which it is separat ...
(Quemoy). On , the aircraft serving the flight, a 10-month-old
ATR 72-600 The ATR 72 is a twin-engine turboprop, short-haul regional airliner developed and produced in France and Italy by aircraft manufacturer ATR (french: Avions de transport régional or it, Aerei da Trasporto Regionale), a joint venture formed ...
, crashed into the
Keelung River The Keelung River () is a river in northern Taiwan. The Keelung River originates in the mountains west-northwest of the town of Jingtong in Pingxi District, New Taipei City, flows down to a rift valley and then flows ENE to Sandiaoling. Then ...
shortly after takeoff from
Taipei Songshan Airport Taipei Songshan Airport is a regional airport and military airbase located in Songshan District, Taipei, Taiwan. The airport covers an area of . The civilian section of Songshan Airport has scheduled flights to domestic destinations in Taiwa ...
, to the east of Songshan in
Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...
. The aircraft had 53 passengers and five crew on board; 15 of them survived. Two minutes after takeoff, the pilots reported an engine
flameout In aviation, a flameout (or flame-out) is the run-down of a jet engine or other turbine engine due to the extinction of the flame in its combustor. The loss of flame can have a variety of causes, such as fuel starvation, excessive altitude, com ...
. Flight 235 climbed to a maximum height of , then descended. The other engine, still working, was shut down mistakenly. Immediately before crashing into the river, it banked sharply left and clipped a taxi travelling west on the Huandong Viaduct (causing two more injuries), then the viaduct itself, with its left wing. Flight 235 was the second fatal accident involving a TransAsia Airways ATR aircraft within seven months; Flight 222 had crashed on 2014, killing 48 of the 58 onboard.


Flight

Flight 235 departed Taipei Songshan Airport at Taiwan time , for its destination of
Kinmen Airport Kinmen Shangyi Airport () is a civilian airport serving Kinmen, Fujian Province, Republic of China. It is located at Jinhu Township of Kinmen County. It was authorized to become a C-class airport under the direct supervision of the Civil Aerona ...
, with 53 passengers and five crew members on board. Shortly after take-off, a fault in the autofeather unit of the number-2 engine caused the automatic take-off power control system to autofeather that engine. The flight crew misdiagnosed the problem, and shut down the still-functioning number-1 engine. The aircraft reached an altitude of and then began descending until it crashed. The last pilot communication to
air traffic control Air traffic control (ATC) is a service provided by ground-based air traffic controllers who direct aircraft on the ground and through a given section of controlled airspace, and can provide advisory services to aircraft in non-controlled airs ...
was: " Mayday, mayday, engine
flameout In aviation, a flameout (or flame-out) is the run-down of a jet engine or other turbine engine due to the extinction of the flame in its combustor. The loss of flame can have a variety of causes, such as fuel starvation, excessive altitude, com ...
." At 10:55, the aircraft crashed into the
Keelung River The Keelung River () is a river in northern Taiwan. The Keelung River originates in the mountains west-northwest of the town of Jingtong in Pingxi District, New Taipei City, flows down to a rift valley and then flows ENE to Sandiaoling. Then ...
, on the border of Nangang District of Taipei and
Xizhi District Xizhi () is an inner city district in eastern New Taipei City in northern Taiwan, and is located between Taipei City and Keelung City. Compared to most districts in eastern New Taipei, which are very sparsely populated, Xizhi is one of the mo ...
of
New Taipei New Taipei City is a special municipality located in northern Taiwan. The city is home to an estimated population of 3,974,683 as of 2022, making it the most populous city of Taiwan, and also the second largest special municipality by area, b ...
. The crash was recorded by
dashcam A dashboard camera or simply dashcam, also known as car digital video recorder (car DVR), driving recorder, or event data recorder (EDR), is an onboard camera that continuously records the view through a vehicle's front windscreen and sometimes ...
s in several cars travelling west along the elevated Huandong Viaduct next to the river. The aircraft, flying level, first cleared an apartment building. Then it rolled sharply, at nearly a 90° bank angle, left wing down. As the aircraft flew low over the elevated viaduct, its left wingtip struck the front of a 2015 Volkswagen Caddy taxi travelling west on the viaduct, and the outboard section of the wing was torn off when it struck the concrete guardrail at the edge of the viaduct. The aircraft continued its roll and struck the water upside down, breaking into two main pieces. The collision with the taxi and the viaduct was captured in footage from a dashcam in a car travelling a short distance behind the taxi, and debris from the plane's wing and pieces of the viaduct's guardrail were thrown across the road surface. Two people in the taxi suffered minor injuries. At the time of the accident, no adverse weather phenomena were observed. At , the
cloud base A cloud base (or the base of the cloud) is the lowest altitude of the visible portion of a cloud. It is traditionally expressed either in metres or feet above mean sea level or above a planetary surface, or as the pressure level corresponding to ...
at Songshan was about , the visibility was unlimited, and a light breeze was blowing from the east at . The temperature was .


Aircraft

The aircraft involved in the accident was an
ATR 72-600 The ATR 72 is a twin-engine turboprop, short-haul regional airliner developed and produced in France and Italy by aircraft manufacturer ATR (french: Avions de transport régional or it, Aerei da Trasporto Regionale), a joint venture formed ...
twin-
turboprop A turboprop is a turbine engine that drives an aircraft propeller. A turboprop consists of an intake, reduction gearbox, compressor, combustor, turbine, and a propelling nozzle. Air enters the intake and is compressed by the compressor. ...
, registration B-22816,
MSN MSN (meaning Microsoft Network) is a web portal and related collection of Internet services and apps for Windows and mobile devices, provided by Microsoft and launched on August 24, 1995, alongside the release of Windows 95. The Microsoft Net ...
1141. It first flew on 2014, and was delivered to
TransAsia Airways TransAsia Airways (TNA, until January 1992 known by its Chinese-translated name Foshing Airlines;For historical pictures with "Foshing Airlines" on it, see: ) was a Taiwanese airline based in Neihu District in Taipei. Though the company starte ...
on 2014. The left Pratt & Whitney Canada PW127M engine was replaced in August 2014.


Passengers and crew

The passenger manifest was composed of 49 adults and four children. Thirty-one passengers were Chinese; many were visitors from
Xiamen Xiamen ( , ; ), also known as Amoy (, from Hokkien pronunciation ), is a sub-provincial city in southeastern Fujian, People's Republic of China, beside the Taiwan Strait. It is divided into six districts: Huli, Siming, Jimei, Tong'an ...
on a six-day tour of Taiwan. The remaining 22 passengers were Taiwanese. The flight crew consisted of two pilots, both ranked as captains; the captain was Liao Chien-tsung, 42, with a total of 4,914 flight hours (including 250 hours on the ATR 72) and the co-pilot was Liu Tze-chung, 33, with a total of 6,922 flight hours, including 5,314 hours on the ATR 72. Also, an observer, Hung Ping-chung, 63, was seated in the cockpit
jump seat In aviation, a jump seat or jumpseat is an auxiliary seat for individuals—other than normal passengers—who are not operating the aircraft. In general, the term 'jump seat' can also refer to a seat in any type of vehicle which can fold up out ...
, who had a total of 16,121 flight hours, 6,482 of them on the ATR 72. Two flight attendants were working as cabin crew. All crew members were Taiwanese citizens; the co-pilot was a dual New Zealand–Taiwanese citizen.


Rescue and recovery

Taipei police and fire departments received dozens of calls from eyewitnesses almost immediately after the crash. The Taipei Fire Department,
military A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. It is typically authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with its members identifiable by their distinct ...
, and volunteer rescue workers arrived at the crash scene within minutes, and reached the survivors by boat around 35 minutes after the crash. They began removing survivors from the rear section of the semisubmerged fuselage and ferried them to shore in inflatable boats. Divers were forced to cut the seat belts of dead passengers, located mostly in the front section, to remove their bodies. That work was made difficult by low visibility under water. The aircraft's flight recorders were recovered shortly after that day. After , cranes were used to lift large sections of the fuselage ashore. Of the 58 people on board the flight, only 15 survived. On , the bodies of the pilot, co-pilot, and observer were recovered. One of the two flight attendants survived.


Press reports

An unnamed source was reported to have claimed that the pilot had complained of "engine abnormalities" and requested an urgent inspection of the aircraft shortly before its final take-off, but had been rebuffed. This assertion has been denied by both TransAsia Airways and the Civil Aeronautics Administration, the former of whom has released the maintenance records for both powerplants, both propellers, and the airframe.


Reactions


TransAsia Airways

Following the accident, TransAsia Airways changed its website and social media branding to greyscale images, in mourning for the presumed deaths of the passengers. On , TransAsia retired the flight number GE235, changing it to GE2353.


Taiwan

The spokesperson of the
Office of the President of the Republic of China The Office of the President () is an organ of the Republic of China (Taiwan) that handles the general administrative affairs of the President and the Vice President. The office, together with the National Security Council, serve as the two adv ...
reported that President
Ma Ying-jeou Ma Ying-jeou ( zh, 馬英九, born 13 July 1950) is a Hong Kong-born Taiwanese politician who served as president of the Republic of China from 2008 to 2016. Previously, he served as justice minister from 1993 to 1996 and mayor of Taipei fro ...
was very concerned about the accident and had given orders to the Executive Yuan and related authorities to provide maximum assistance with the rescue. Immediately after the accident, the president of the Executive Yuan,
Mao Chi-kuo Mao Chi-kuo (; born 4 October 1948 in Fenghua, Chekiang) is a Taiwanese politician, who served as the Premier, the President of Executive Yuan from 2014 to 2016. Early life Mao was born on 4 October 1948, in Fenghua, Chekiang Province. ...
, contacted the
Ministry of Transportation A ministry of transport or transportation is a ministry responsible for transportation within a country. It usually is administered by the ''minister for transport''. The term is also sometimes applied to the departments or other government ag ...
and Civil Aeronautics Administration to instigate an investigation into the crash, and the
minister of national defense A defence minister or minister of defence is a cabinet official position in charge of a ministry of defense, which regulates the armed forces in sovereign states. The role of a defence minister varies considerably from country to country; in som ...
to prepare the
military A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. It is typically authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with its members identifiable by their distinct ...
for the rescue. The final report on the investigation carried out by Taiwan Transportation Safety Board was released on 30 June 2016.


China

Over half of the passengers on board the aircraft were
Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of ...
. On 2015,
Xi Jinping Xi Jinping ( ; ; ; born 15 June 1953) is a Chinese politician who has served as the general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), and thus as the paramount leader of China, ...
, the
General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party The general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party () is the head of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the sole ruling party of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Since 1989, the CCP general secretary has been the paramount leader ...
, released a statement, ordering that accurate information on the aircraft be obtained as quickly as possible, and that "assistance e providedin treating the injured". On the same day, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang instructed relevant departments to obtain accurate information from Taipei as quickly as possible.


Investigation

The Taiwanese
Aviation Safety Council The Taiwan Transportation Safety Board (TTSB, ) is an independent government agency of the Republic of China responsible for major transportation accidents on aviation, railways, waterways, and highways in Taiwan. The council is headquartered in ...
(ASC) led the investigation into the accident. The French
Bureau d'Enquêtes et d'Analyses pour la Sécurité de l'Aviation Civile The Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety (BEA, ) is an agency of the French government, responsible for investigating aviation accidents and incidents and making safety recommendations based on what is learned from those inve ...
represented the country of manufacture, and the
Transportation Safety Board of Canada The Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB, french: Bureau de la sécurité des transports du Canada, BST), officially the Canadian Transportation Accident Investigation and Safety Board (french: link=no, Bureau canadien d'enquête sur les ...
represented the country of engine manufacture. Other parties to the investigation included the Taiwanese Civil Aeronautics Administration, the operator (TransAsia), the aircraft (
ATR ATR may refer to: Medicine * Acute transfusion reaction * Ataxia telangiectasia and Rad3 related, a protein involved in DNA damage repair Science and mathematics * Advanced Test Reactor, nuclear research reactor at the Idaho National Laboratory, ...
) and engine ( Pratt & Whitney Canada) manufacturers, and
Transport Canada Transport Canada (french: Transports Canada) is the department within the Government of Canada responsible for developing regulations, policies and services of road, rail, marine and air transportation in Canada. It is part of the Transporta ...
. The cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder were recovered on the evening of , and the data were analysed. According to the executive director of the ASC, Thomas Wang, the aircraft's right engine triggered an alarm just 37 seconds after takeoff. Whereas the crew reported a flameout, according to Wang, data showed the right engine had in fact been moved to idle power. Soon the right engine failed to produce enough thrust for its rotating propeller, lapsing into auto-feathering. A restart was attempted, but the aircraft crashed 72 seconds later. On , investigators revealed that the left engine, which does not appear to have had suffered a malfunction, had been manually shut off, while cautioning that the investigation was "too early to say if human error was a factor". Investigators released the following preliminary sequence of events. All times are local (
UTC+8 UTC+08:00 is an identifier for a time offset from UTC of +08:00. With an estimated population of 1.708 billion living within the time zone, roughly 24% of the world population, it is the most populous time zone in the world, as well as a ...
). * 10:51:13 – Crew receives take-off clearance * 10:52:34 – Tower asks the crew to contact Taipei Departure * 10:52:38 – Right engine failure alert; master warning sounds for 3s * 10:53:04 – Crew reduces power to the left engine * 10:53:12–18 –
Stall warning In fluid dynamics, a stall is a reduction in the lift coefficient generated by a foil (fluid mechanics), foil as angle of attack increases.Crane, Dale: ''Dictionary of Aeronautical Terms, third edition'', p. 486. Aviation Supplies & Academics, 199 ...
sounds * 10:53:24 – Crew cuts power to the left engine * 10:53:34 – Crew declares emergency: "Mayday, mayday, engine flameout" * 10:54:09 – Crew calls for restarting the left engine multiple times * 10:54:20 – The left engine is restarted * 10:54:34 – Master warning sounds again * 10:54:35 – An unidentified sound is heard * 10:54:36 – Recordings end The ASC issued an interim report on . Without assigning responsibility for the crash, the report confirmed that a still-functional engine number one was incorrectly shut down by the pilot following the failure of engine number two. The report also stated that the
pilot in command The pilot in command (PIC) of an aircraft is the person aboard the aircraft who is ultimately responsible for its operation and safety during flight. This would be the captain in a typical two- or three- pilot aircrew, or "pilot" if there is on ...
had failed to pass a simulator test in May 2014, partly due to his insufficient knowledge about the procedure for handling an engine flameout during takeoff. He retook the test the following month, however, and successfully passed. The ASC released a draft report in November 2015 and published the final version in July 2016. The final report found that, following the uncommanded autofeather of engine number 2, the pilot flying the aircraft reduced power and subsequently shut down the operative engine number 1. The flight crew failed to perform the failure identification procedure and did not comply with standard operating procedures. As a result, the pilot flying the aircraft became confused regarding the identification and nature of the propulsion-system malfunction. The autofeathering was caused by compromised soldering joints in the autofeather unit. During the initial stages of the take-off roll, the flight crew did not reject the take-off when the automatic take-off power control system ARM pushbutton did not light, and TransAsia did not have a clear requirement to do so. The loss of engine power during the initial climb and inappropriate flight control inputs by the pilot flying generated stall warnings and activation of the stick pusher to which the crew did not respond in a timely and effective manner. The loss of power from both engines was not detected and corrected by the crew in time and the aircraft stalled during the attempted restart at an altitude from which they could not recover. Ineffective flight crew coordination, communication, and
threat and error management In aviation safety, threat and error management (TEM) is an overarching safety management approach that assumes that pilots will naturally make mistakes and encounter risky situations during flight operations. Rather than try to avoid these threa ...
compromised the safety of the flight. The crew failed to obtain relevant data from each other regarding the status of both engines. The pilot flying did not appropriately respond to input from the pilot monitoring. During the investigation, TransAsia Airways disclosed confidential information from the draft report to ''Next'' magazine, which published a story in its issue of 11 May 2016. This was an attempt to influence the investigation into the accident. TransAsia Airways were fined
NT$ The New Taiwan dollar (code: TWD; symbol: NT$, also abbreviated as NT) is the official currency of Taiwan. The New Taiwan dollar has been the currency of Taiwan since 1949, when it replaced the Old Taiwan dollar, at a rate of 40,000 old dollars ...
3,000,000 (
US$ The United States dollar (symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the official ...
92,000).


Aftermath

The Civil Aeronautics Administration announced it would subject all TransAsia Airways ATR pilots to supplementary proficiency tests between 7 and , resulting in the cancellation of more than 100 TransAsia flights. Ten pilots who failed the engine-out oral test and a further 19 who did not attend were suspended for one month, pending a retest. TransAsia subsequently demoted one pilot from captain to first officer. Reuters reported that the government ordered all Taiwanese airlines to "review their safety protocols". The Taiwanese CAA announced that it is focusing its attention on TransAsia's training and operations and the country's labor ministry fined the airline for breaches of the labor code over excessive working hours. On , TransAsia offered NT$14.9 million (about US$475,000) in compensation to the family of each of the dead. This amount includes emergency relief and funeral allowance, totaling NT$1.4M (US$44,300), already paid to each family. Not all of the families have accepted the offer. The taxi that was struck by the plane has been transported and preserved in an undisclosed museum. Before this accident,
TransAsia Airways Flight 222 TransAsia Airways Flight 222 was a scheduled domestic passenger flight operated by TransAsia Airways from Kaohsiung, Taiwan, to Magong, Penghu Island. On 23 July 2014, the ATR 72-500 twin turboprop operating the route crashed into buildings dur ...
, which involved another ATR 72-500, crashed during approach due to
pilot error Pilot error generally refers to an accident in which an action or decision made by the pilot was the cause or a contributing factor that led to the accident, but also includes the pilot's failure to make a correct decision or take proper a ...
. The airline ceased its operations and shut down indefinitely on 22 November 2016.


In popular culture

Canadian TV series '' Mayday'' (also known as ''Air Disasters'' and ''Air Emergency'' in the US and ''Air Crash Investigation'' in the UK and the rest of the world) covered Flight 235 in episode seven of series 17, called "Caught on Tape", which was first broadcast on 19 September 2017 in Australia.


See also

*
Kegworth air disaster The Kegworth air disaster occurred when British Midland Airways Flight 092, a Boeing 737-400, crashed onto the motorway embankment between the M1 motorway and A453 road near Kegworth, Leicestershire, England, while attempting to make an emer ...
,
SA Airlink Flight 8911 SA Airlink Flight 8911 was a positioning flight from Durban International Airport to Pietermaritzburg Airport, South Africa, that crashed into the grounds of Merebank Secondary School, Durban shortly after take-off on 24 September 2009, injurin ...
and
Azerbaijan Airlines Flight 56 Azerbaijan Airlines Flight A-56 was a scheduled domestic passenger flight from Nakhchivan to Baku operated by Azerbaijan Airlines which crashed on 5 December 1995, killing 52 people. The aircraft servicing the flight, a Tupolev Tu-134B-3, expe ...
- other cases of wrong engine shutdown * JS Air Flight 201 *
Pakistan International Airlines Flight 661 Pakistan International Airlines Flight 661 was a Pakistani domestic passenger flight from Chitral to Islamabad, operated by Pakistan's flag carrier Pakistan International Airlines. On 7 December 2016, the aircraft serving the route, an ATR 42-500 ...
* Aeroflot Flight 68


Notes


References


External links


Final report files in English
-
Aviation Safety Council The Taiwan Transportation Safety Board (TTSB, ) is an independent government agency of the Republic of China responsible for major transportation accidents on aviation, railways, waterways, and highways in Taiwan. The council is headquartered in ...
*
Final report
*
Preliminary reportFinal report files in Chinese
-
Aviation Safety Council The Taiwan Transportation Safety Board (TTSB, ) is an independent government agency of the Republic of China responsible for major transportation accidents on aviation, railways, waterways, and highways in Taiwan. The council is headquartered in ...
*
Final report
*
Preliminary report復興航空說明 2015-02-06 1930 版
evival Aviation Description 2015-02-06 1930 Edition
TransAsia Airways TransAsia Airways (TNA, until January 1992 known by its Chinese-translated name Foshing Airlines;For historical pictures with "Foshing Airlines" on it, see: ) was a Taiwanese airline based in Neihu District in Taipei. Though the company starte ...

News Releases
"
Aviation Safety Council The Taiwan Transportation Safety Board (TTSB, ) is an independent government agency of the Republic of China responsible for major transportation accidents on aviation, railways, waterways, and highways in Taiwan. The council is headquartered in ...

Flight GE 235 on 2015, ATR 72–600 (72-212A)

Archive
Bureau d'Enquêtes et d'Analyses pour la Sécurité de l'Aviation Civile The Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety (BEA, ) is an agency of the French government, responsible for investigating aviation accidents and incidents and making safety recommendations based on what is learned from those inve ...


Multimedia


復興航空墜機 事件即時統整資訊
" uxing Air Crash Event Instant Integration Informationbr>Archive
Central News Agency (Taiwan), 4 February 2015 – Article showing van and another video of the crash * * {{authority control 2015 in Taiwan Accidents and incidents involving the ATR 72 Airliner accidents and incidents caused by pilot error Aviation accidents and incidents in 2015 Aviation accidents and incidents in Taiwan TransAsia Airways accidents and incidents February 2015 events in Asia Airliner accidents and incidents caused by wrong engine shutdown 2015 disasters in Taiwan