Almost 50 people were killed Wednesday after a commercial plane crashed while trying to land in bad weather on a small Taiwanese island. The TransAsia twin-turboprop ATR-72 aircraft was carrying 54 passengers and four crew when it made a second attempt to land on Penghu in the Taiwan Strait. The region was experiencing heavy rain in the wake of Typhoon Matmo, which closed Taiwanese financial markets and schools Tuesday before moving onto China. Television pictures showed burning wreckage in what appeared to be a residential area. "It's chaotic on the scene," Jean Shen, director of Taiwan's Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA), told Reuters.
The Penghu disaster response center put the death toll at 48. The 10 other people were injured.
The flight took off at 5:43 p.m. local time (5:43 a.m. ET) from the city of Kaohsiung on the Taiwanese mainland and was traveling to Penghu’s main airport.
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— Christina Boyle and Alexander Smith
Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
