TransAsia Airways Flight 235

TransAsia Airways Flight 235 was a TransAsia Airways domestic flight from Taipei to Kinmen (Quemoy), Republic of China. On 4 February 2015, the aircraft serving the flight, a ten-month-old ATR 72-600, crashed into the Keelung River shortly after takeoff from Taipei Songshan Airport, 5.4 km (3.4 mi; 2.9 nmi) to the west of Songshan in Taiwan. The aircraft had 53 passengers and five crew on board; there were 15 survivors.

TransAsia Airways Flight 235
A frame from a dashcam video showing Flight 235 having just clipped a taxi and the Huandong Viaduct with its left wing, seconds before crashing into the Keelung River
Accident
Date4 February 2015 (2015-02-04)
SummaryEngine failure leading to pilot error
SiteKeelung River, Taipei, Taiwan
25°03′48″N 121°37′04″E
Total fatalities43
Total injuries17
Aircraft
Aircraft typeATR 72-600
OperatorTransAsia Airways
IATA flight No.GE235
ICAO flight No.TNA235
Call signTRANSASIA 235
RegistrationB-22816
Flight originTaipei Songshan Airport, Songshan, Taipei, Republic of China (Taiwan)
DestinationKinmen Airport, Kinmen, Republic of China (Taiwan)
Occupants58
Passengers53
Crew5
Fatalities43
Injuries15
Survivors15
Ground casualties
Ground fatalities0
Ground injuries2

Two minutes after takeoff, the pilots reported an engine flameout. Flight 235 climbed to a maximum height of 1,510 feet (460 m), then descended. The other engine, still working, was shut down mistakenly.[1][2] 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 23 July 2014, killing 48 of the 58 on board.

Flight
Kinmen Airport
Taipei Songshan Airport
Location of the accident and departure/destination airports

Flight 235 departed Taipei Songshan Airport at 10:52 Taiwan time (02:52 UTC), for its destination of Kinmen Airport, with 53 passengers and five crew members on board.[3] Shortly after take-off, a fault in the auto-feather unit of the number 2 engine caused the automatic take-off power control system to auto-feather that engine.[4]:146[lower-alpha 1] The flight crew misdiagnosed the problem, and shut down the still-functioning number 1 engine.[4]:146 The aircraft reached an altitude of 1,630 feet (500 m) and then began descending until it crashed.[4]:3[5] The last pilot communication to air traffic control was: "Mayday, mayday, engine flameout."[6][7] At 10:55,[4]:4 the aircraft crashed into the Keelung River, on the border of Nangang District of Taipei and Xizhi District of New Taipei.

The crash was recorded by dashcams 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-degree bank angle, left wing down. As the aircraft flew low over the elevated viaduct, its left wingtip struck the front of a 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.[7][8] The aircraft continued its roll and struck the water upside down,[9] breaking into two main pieces.[10] 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.[11] Two people in the taxi suffered minor injuries.[6][8]

At the time of the accident, no adverse weather phenomena were observed. At 11:00, the cloud base at Songshan was about 1,500 feet (460 m), the visibility was unlimited, and a light breeze was blowing from the east at 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph). The temperature was 16 °C (61 °F).[5]

Aircraft
B-22816, the ATR-72 involved, photographed a month before the accident

The aircraft involved in the accident was an ATR 72-600 twin turboprop, registration B-22816, MSN 1141. It first flew on 28 March 2014, and was delivered to TransAsia Airways on 15 April 2014.[12] Both Pratt & Whitney Canada PW127M engines were replaced due to technical issues on 19 April 2014,[13] and the left engine was replaced again in August.[4]:15

Passengers and crew

The passenger manifest was composed of 49 adults and four children. Thirty-one passengers were Chinese; many were visitors from Xiamen on a six-day tour of Taiwan.[14][15] The remaining 22 passengers were Taiwanese.[7]

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 3,401 hours on the ATR 72) and the co-pilot was Liu Tze-chung, 45, with a total of 6,922 flight hours, including 5,314 hours on the ATR 72.[5][15][16] There was also an observer, Hung Ping-chung, 63, seated in the cockpit jump seat, who had a total of 16,121 flight hours, 6,482 of them on the ATR 72.[17] There were also two flight attendants as cabin crew. All crew members were Taiwanese citizens; the co-pilot was a dual New Zealand–Taiwanese citizen.[16]

Nationality Passengers Crew Total
Taiwan[lower-alpha 2] 22 5 27
China 31 - 31
Total 53 5 58

Rescue and recovery
Rescue operations in the Keelung River around the wreckage of Flight 235, the Huandong Viaduct in the background

Taipei police and fire departments received dozens of calls from eyewitnesses almost immediately after the crash. The Taipei Fire Department, military and volunteer rescue workers arrived at the crash scene only minutes later,[4]:49 and reached the survivors by boat around 35 minutes after the crash.[4]:45 They began removing survivors from the rear section of the semi-submerged 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 underwater.[4]:48–50

The aircraft's flight recorders were recovered shortly after 16:00 that day. After 20:00, cranes were used to lift large sections of the fuselage ashore.[6][18][19]

Of the 58 people on board the flight, only 15 survived.[20] On 5 February, the bodies of the pilot, co-pilot and observer were recovered.[21] One of the two flight attendants survived.[22]

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.[23] 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.[24]

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 5 February, TransAsia retired the flight number GE235, changing it to GE2353.[25]

Taiwan

The spokesperson of the Office of the President of the Republic of China reported that President Ma Ying-jeou 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, contacted the Ministry of Transportation and Civil Aeronautics Administration to instigate an investigation into the crash, and the minister of national defense to prepare the military for the rescue.[26]

China

Over half of the passengers on board the aircraft were mainland Chinese. On 5 February 2015, Xi Jinping, the president of China, released a statement, ordering that accurate information on the aircraft be obtained as quickly as possible, and that "assistance [be provided] in treating the injured".[27] On the same day, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang instructed relevant departments to obtain accurate information from Taipei as quickly as possible.[28]

Investigation

The Taiwanese Aviation Safety Council (ASC) led the investigation into the accident.[7][29] The French BEA represented the country of manufacture, and the Transportation Safety Board of Canada represented the country of engine manufacture. Other parties to the investigation included the Taiwanese Civil Aeronautics Administration, the operator (TransAsia), the aircraft (ATR) and engine (Pratt & Whitney Canada) manufacturers, and Transport Canada.[4]:v[30] The cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder were recovered on the evening of 4 February, and the data was analysed.[5] According to the executive director of the ASC, Thomas Wang, the aircraft's right engine triggered an alarm just 37 seconds after takeoff.[31] Whereas the crew reported a flameout,[32] according to Wang, data showed one of the engines had in fact been moved into idle mode.[31] Soon the right engine failed to produce enough thrust for its rotating propeller, lapsing into auto-feathering.[32] A restart was attempted, but the aircraft crashed 72 seconds later.[31]

On 6 February, investigators revealed that the left engine, which does not appear to have had suffered a malfunction, had been manually shut off,[33] while cautioning that it was "too early to say if human error was a factor".[34] Investigators released the following preliminary sequence of events. All times are local (UTC+8).[4][30][35]

  • 10:51:13 – Crew receives take-off clearance
  • 10:52:34 – Tower asks 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 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 — 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 2 July. 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.[1][2] The report also stated that the pilot in command 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.[1][2][4]

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 auto feather 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 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.[4]

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$ 3,000,000 (US$ 92,000).[36]

Aftermath

The Civil Aeronautics Administration announced it would subject all TransAsia Airways ATR pilots to supplementary proficiency tests between 7 and 10 February,[5] resulting in the cancellation of more than 100 TransAsia flights. Ten pilots who failed the engine-out oral test and a further nineteen who did not attend were suspended for one month, pending a re-test. TransAsia subsequently demoted one pilot from captain to vice-captain.[1] Reuters reported that the government ordered all Taiwanese airlines to "review their safety protocols".[37][38] 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.[39][40]

On 11 February, TransAsia offered 14.9 million New Taiwan dollars (about US$475,000) in compensation to the family of each of the dead. This amount includes emergency relief and funeral allowance, totalling NT$1.4M (US$44,300), already paid to each family. Not all of the families have accepted the offer.[41]

Before this accident, TransAsia Airways Flight 222 which involved another ATR 72-500 crashed during approach due to pilot error. The airline ceased its operations and shut down indefinitely on 22 November 2016.

The Canadian TV series Mayday (also known as Air Crash Disaster and Air Emergency in the US and Air Crash Investigation in the UK and the rest of the world) covered Flight 235 in episode 7 of series 17, called "Caught on Tape", which was first broadcast on 19 September 2017 in Australia.[42][43]

See also

Notes
  1. The auto-feather unit is supposed to cut in automatically so as to minimize the drag from a windmilling propeller in the event of a single engine failure.[4]:79
  2. The First officer had dual New Zealand-Taiwanese Citizenship

References
  1. "Taiwan plane crash: Pilot pulled wrong throttle, shut down engine". CBC News. Associated Press. 2 July 2015. Retrieved 2 July 2015.
  2. Mortimer, Caroline (2 July 2015). "Last words of TransAsia crash pilot were 'Wow, pulled back the wrong side throttle'". The Independent. Archived from the original on 2 July 2015. Retrieved 2 July 2015.
  3. 复兴空难已救出20名伤者 3名无生命迹象 [Disaster recovery have been rescued 20 persons who have been injured 3 no sign of life]. sina.com.cn (in Chinese). Retrieved 4 February 2015.
  4. "Aviation Safety Council Aviation Occurrence Report ASC-AOR-16-06-001 TransAsia Airways Flight GE235 ATR72-212A" (PDF). Aviation Safety Council. July 2016. ASC-AOR-16-06-001. Retrieved 6 July 2017.
  5. "Crash: Transasia AT72 at Taipei on Feb 4th 2015, engine flame out, rolled sharply and lost height shortly after takeoff". The Aviation Herald. 7 February 2015. Retrieved 7 February 2015.
  6. Ramzy, Austin (4 February 2015). "At Least 19 Killed After Plane Crashes into River in Taiwan". The New York Times. Retrieved 4 February 2015.
  7. "Taiwan TransAsia plane crashes into river". BBC News Online. 4 February 2015. Retrieved 4 February 2015.
  8. "Taiwanese plane with 53 passengers crashes in Taipei river". Yahoo! News. 3 February 2015. Retrieved 4 February 2015.
  9. Hung, Faith (6 February 2015). "Corrected – Pilot's body found still clutching controls of crashed Taiwan plane-media". Reuters. Retrieved 7 February 2015.
  10. Hsu, Jenny W.; Liu, Fanny; Poon, Aries (4 February 2015). "Taiwan Plane Crash: TransAsia Flight Loses Control, Plunges Into River". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 13 February 2015.
  11. "Taiwan Plane Crash: Rescue and recovery after TransAsia plane crash". CNN News. YouTube. Retrieved 6 January 2020.
  12. "ATR 42/72 – 1141 – MSN B-22816". Airfleets.net. Retrieved 4 February 2015.
  13. "Taiwan pilot hailed a hero for pulling plane clear of buildings". The Star Online. 5 February 2015. Retrieved 8 February 2015.
  14. Chung, Lawrence (4 February 2015). "Search for survivors after Taiwan plane crashes into river; 24 confirmed dead". South China Morning Post. Retrieved 4 February 2015.
  15. Huang, Keira Lu; Chen, Andrea (5 February 2015). "Taiwan official confirms pilot's 'mayday' call authentic as air crash death toll rises". South China Morning Post. Retrieved 5 February 2015.
  16. Tait, Morgan (7 February 2015). "Hero pilot killed in Taiwan tragedy was Kiwi citizen". The New Zealand Herald. Retrieved 7 February 2015.
  17. Shan, Shelley; Hsiao, Alison (6 February 2015). "CAA to block new TransAsia air routes". Taipei Times. p. 1.
  18. Tsoi, Grace; Phillips, Tom (4 February 2015). "TransAsia plane crashes into river in Taiwan". The Telegraph. Retrieved 4 February 2015.
  19. "Video: Rescue crews in Taiwan work to free passengers trapped in TransAsia plane". The Telegraph. 4 February 2015. Retrieved 4 February 2015.
  20. "復興空難搜救 尋獲最後一具遺體" [Renaissance air disaster search and rescue, find the last body]. www.cna.com.tw (in Chinese). CNA. Retrieved 15 July 2019.
  21. 持续更新：复兴坠机第4日 目前40死3失踪 [Continuous update: Revival crash 4th day Currently 40 dead 3 missing]. NTDTV.com. Retrieved 8 February 2015.
  22. MacLeod, Calum. "TransAsia pilot: 'Mayday, mayday, engine flameout". USA Today. Retrieved 8 February 2015.
  23. Phillips, Tom (5 February 2015). "TransAsia plane crash: Pilot complained of 'engine abnormality' before take-off". The Telegraph. Retrieved 12 February 2015.
  24. Lin, Karlie (6 February 2015). "GE235 maintenance check refused: report". The China Post. Archived from the original on 2 July 2015. Retrieved 2 July 2015.
  25. "復興航空說明 2015-02-04 2300版" [Revival Aviation Description 2015-02-04 2300 Edition]. tna.com.tw. 4 February 2015. Retrieved 5 February 2015.
  26. ETtoday 新聞雲 (4 February 2015). "快訊／復興墜南港　馬英九指示全力搜救、全面援助" [News / Revival of South Port Ma Ying-jeou instructed full search and rescue, comprehensive assistance] (in Chinese). ETtoday 新聞雲. Retrieved 4 February 2015.
  27. Hui, Lu (4 February 2015). "Xi orders assistance after TransAsia plane crash". Xinhua. Retrieved 4 February 2015.
  28. Government of China (4 February 2015). 李克強就台灣復興航空班機墜河作出重要批示 [Li Keqiang made important instructions on the Taiwanese renaissance flight] (in Chinese). Government of China. Retrieved 4 February 2015.
  29. Culpan, Tim (4 February 2015). "Transasia Plane Crashes Near Taipei, Aviation Council Says". Bloomberg News. Retrieved 4 February 2015.
  30. "TransAsia Airways Flight GE 235 Occurrence". Aviation Safety Council. 6 February 2015. Retrieved 6 February 2015.
  31. "TransAsia GE235: Taiwan crash plane 'lost engine power'". BBC. 7 February 2015. Retrieved 28 March 2015.
  32. Davison, Nicola (6 February 2015). "TransAsia plane's black box reveals the moments before fatal crash". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 28 March 2015.
  33. "Pilots in Crash May Have Shut Wrong Engine, Finding Suggests". New York Times. 6 February 2015. Retrieved 12 February 2015.
  34. "Accident investigators say main cause of Taipei air crash was engine failure". South China Morning Post. 6 February 2015. Retrieved 8 February 2015.
  35. 復興航空GE235飛航事故調查: 進度報告 [TransAsia Airways Flight GE 235 Accident Investigation Progress Report] (PDF). Aviation Safety Council (in Chinese). 6 February 2015. Retrieved 8 February 2015.
  36. "TransAsia Airways fined for disclosing confidential information during accident investigation". Aviation Safety Network. Retrieved 29 November 2016.
  37. Hung, Faith (11 February 2015). "Taiwan orders all airlines review safety after bad test results". Reuters. Retrieved 12 February 2015.
  38. Ramzy, Austin (11 February 2015). "Many Pilots Fail Safety Test at TransAsia". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 11 February 2015.
  39. Shu-fen, Wang; Hsin-Yin, Lee (25 February 2015). "Unqualified TransAsia pilots to be re-evaluated mid-March: CAA". Focus Taiwan. Retrieved 9 March 2015.
  40. "Taiwanese carriers to be fined for labour code violations". ch-aviation. 22 February 2015. Retrieved 9 March 2015.
  41. Board, Jack; Jen, Victoria (11 February 2015). "TransAsia offers compensation payment of US$473,000 to each GE235 crash victim". Channel NewsAsia. Archived from the original on 11 February 2015. Retrieved 11 February 2015.
  42. Investigation, Air Crash (25 July 2017). "Air Crash Investigation Season 17, Episode 7 (TransAsia Flight 235) will be known as "Caught On Tape". Air Date: September 19, 2017 (Aus).pic.twitter.com/bzYbKO5dxl".
  43. "Air Crash Investigation - National Geographic". www.nationalgeographic.com.au.

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