Compensation payments decided for victims; analysis of flight data said to be complete

The death toll of the TransAsia Airways plane that crashed into a river in Taipei on Wednesday morning rose to 32, with 18 of the dead from the Chinese mainland, according to Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council.

More than a dozen injured people were being treated in Taipei hospitals, as rescuers continued searching for others still missing.

Of the 58 passengers and crew on board the aircraft, 31 passengers were from the Chinese mainland, Taiwan's tourism bureau said.

The pilot and co-pilot both died, as did everyone seated in the front cabin. As the plane went down, part of its wing struck a taxi on a freeway, injuring the driver and a passenger.

Chen Guilin, deputy director of the Xiamen Tourism Bureau led a group to Taiwan on Thursday morning to deal with the aftermath of the crash. Some family members of the dead and injured also arrived.

TransAsia Airways said each surviving passenger, along with the two people in the vehicle, will receive NT$ 200,000 ($6,300) and NT$1.4 million will be paid out for each death.

The wrecked plane's fuselage was hoisted by crane to the riverbank on Thursday morning. The aircraft's nose had been flattened.

The flight went down shortly after taking off from Taipei's Songshan Airport at 11:53 am en route to the Kinmen islands. As it plunged, it clipped a highway bridge and then careened into the Keelung River in the downtown area.

Wang Hsing-chung, head of Taiwan's Aviation Safety Council, said an analysis of data retrieved from the two black boxes of the crash plane had entered its final phase but still needs confirmation, ET Today reported.

Information from the black boxes is expected to be disclosed as early as Friday afternoon, Wang said.

Zhang Zhijun, chief of the State Council's Taiwan Affairs Office, postponed his visit to Kinmen, said Ma Xiaoguang, spokesman for the office.

Zhang was scheduled to lead a delegation to Kinmen from Feb 7 to 8, during which he would meet Wang Yu-chi, director of Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council.

"The decision was made after the two sides spoke. The TransAsia Airways crash caused huge casualties, and both the Chinese mainland and Taiwan need to concentrate on work dealing with the aftermath," Ma said. "We hope Taiwan will spare no effort in searching for the missing and in other efforts."

Taiwan leader Ma Ying-jeou and Eric Chu, the newly elected KMT chairman, visited the funeral home where TransAsia Airways had set up a mourning hall.

Huang Chin-shun, 72, one of the survivors from Taiwan who managed to unfasten his seat belt in time as the aircraft sank not only saved himself, but also helped unfasten the seat belts for four other passengers. "I saw their seats were sinking, and I quickly unfastened their seat belts and helped pull them out of the cabin," Huang told ET Today. "If 10 more seconds had been lost, they would not have escaped," he said.

It was the second TransAsia flight using a French-made ATR 72 to crash in the past year. In July, another flight crashed while attempting to land on Penghu Island off Taiwan's coast, killing 49 people and injuring 10.

ATR, a French-Italian consortium based in Toulouse, France, said it was sending a team to Taiwan to help in the investigation.

Sun Li contributed to this story.

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(China Daily 02/06/2015 page3)