TransAsia Airways Flight 235

TransAsia Airways Flight 235 (GE235/TNA235) was a scheduled passenger flight between Taipei Songshan Airport and Kinmen Island, Taiwan. On 4 February 2015, the ATR 72-600 operating the flight crashed into the Keelung River shortly after takeoff with 58 people on board.

On the flight, the pilots reported a failure of one of the two turboprop engines just before the crash, but the pilot erred and shut down the working engine. This is the second fatal accident involving TransAsia Airways in a year, following Flight 222. After these two accidents the airline would eventually suspend operations in November 2016.

The aircraft involved in the accident was an ATR 72-600 powered by two turboprop engines, registration B-22816, MSN 1141. The aircraft made its maiden flight on 28 March 2014 and was delivered to TransAsia Airways on 15 April 2014.

Flight 235 was traveling from Taipei Songshan Airport with 53 passengers and five crew on board. It departed Taipei Songshan at 10:53 a.m. Taiwan Time (02:53 UTC). In the air traffic control communications recording, the crew's final communication was "Mayday, mayday, mayday, engine flameout".

At 10:55, controllers lost contact with the aircraft which crashed into the Keelung River near Songshan Airport. Just before the plane hit the water, its left wing struck an elevated highway, injuring two people in a taxi. 43 people on this flight died in the crash and 15 survived.

Immediately after the crash, the Taipei police and fire departments received dozens of phone calls from eyewitnesses who saw the plane crash near the Keelung River. The Taipei Fire Department, military rescue teams, and volunteers arrived on the scene minutes after the crash, beginning by pulling people from the semi-submerged fuselage and bringing them to shore using inflatable boats.

Several divers participated in the rescue efforts, but the dangerous conditions of low visibility and debris made their work very difficult. Most of the survivors were seated near the rear. The aircraft's flight recorders were recovered shortly after 4:00 PM. After 8:00 PM, cranes were used to lift large sections of the fuselage to the ground.

The Taiwan Air Safety Council's latest report on the February crash confirms that the captain of the ATR 72-600 aircraft mistakenly shut down the working engine when the other lost power. The plane is designed to be capable of flying on only one engine. According to the report, an alarm sounded and an on-screen alert showed an engine shutdown or power loss when the plane reached 1,200 feet. ^[1] while cautioning that the investigation was "too early to say if human error was a factor".^[2]

The captain responded by pulling back on the throttle, but on the wrong side, which shut down the working engine. The plane, which was less than a year old, flew dangerously between buildings and struck a bridge and a taxi before crashing into the shallow Keelung River in Taiwan's capital, Taipei. The report also showed that the captain had failed simulator training less than a year earlier, in part because he had demonstrated a lack of knowledge of how to respond to an engine shutdown on takeoff.

Since the February crash, the Taiwanese airline has recruited aviation safety professionals and brought aircraft manufacturers to Taiwan to test its planes. In addition, all ATR aircraft captains have taken tests and did not fly until they passed, the company said. TransAsia has also improved its training facilities, established a training center, and purchased simulation aircraft, among other improvements.

The Canadian TV series Air Crash Investigation (also known as Air Emergency and Air Disasters in the US and Mayday in the UK and the rest of the world) covered Flight 235 in episode seven of season 17, called "Caught on Tape", which was first broadcast on 19 September 2017 in Australia.^[3][4]