The body of pilot of the recently crashed TransAsia plane has been recovered. He has been hailed as a hero for his actions in the last moments before the plane crashed. When the body of the pilot was found, he was still holding the joystick in the plane’s cockpit, according to the reports. The TransAsia plane crash claimed the life of 31 people.
The pilot was identified by TransAsia as 42-year-old Liao Chien-Tsung. Taipei’s mayor praised him for his bravery and for steering the airplane between the blocks of apartment and commercial buildings before ditching the stalled aircraft in a river.
58 passengers and crew was on board TransAsia Flight GE235 when it lurched nose-up between apartment blocks, clipped a bridge and a taxi with one of its wings and then crashed upside down into a river, on Wednesday.
The bodies of the pilot Liao Chien-tsung and his co-pilot were recovered from the turboprop ATR 72-600’s cockpit. Their legs were badly broken, the investigator reports.
Taiwanese Media quotes an unidentified prosecutor reporting: “They were still trying to save this aircraft until the last minute.”
The city officials said that the death toll would have been worse if the plan had crashed in to the commercial area or into any of the buildings it missed narrowly.
Out of all the passengers, 15 people survived, but 12 are still missing. The aviation officers of Taiwan say that they have not given up hope of finding them.
The data and voice recorders from the plane have been recovered. Once it is released more conclusive images on the plane’s last moments will surface.
According to an air traffic control recording, the last communication from the pilot was “Mayday Mayday engine flameout.”
A flameout can be resulted by faulty combustion of when the fuel supply to engine is interrupted, but TransAsia was a twin engine aircraft which keeps flying with one engine even if the other one fails.
The plane was bound for Kinmen, an island in Taiwan, from Taipei’s downtown Songshan. 31 people boarded on the plane were Chinese tourists, mainly from the South Western city of Xiamen.
The aviation regulator of Taiwan has ordered TransAsia and Uni Air, a subsidiary of EVA Airways Corp, to conduct full engine and fuel system check on the other 22 ATR aircraft that they still operate.
Also See: Death Toll Rises to 16 in the Horrifying TransAsia Crash Caught on Camera
