Transasia crash: 35 bodies recovered, eight still missing

More bodies were recovered from Taipei’s Keelung River on Friday as rescue efforts continued two days after TransAsia Airways Corp. Flight 235 crashed shortly after takeoff.

In a Friday statement, the airline said 35 people were dead, 15 injured and eight people—all Chinese nationals—were still missing. The plane was carrying 53 passengers and five cabin crew members.

Air-traffic control lost communication with the plane’s pilots four minutes after takeoff from Taipei’s Songshan Airport en route to Kinmen, an outlying island, at about 10:53 am local time on Wednesday, the Civil Aeronautics Administration said earlier.

Many of the plane’s passengers were Chinese tourists from the mainland province of Fujian, next to Kinmen.

Taiwan’s Aviation Safety Council plans to release an initial analysis of data from the plane’s blackboxes at 3:00 pm on Friday. So far, authorities and TransAsia haven’t suggested possible crash causes.