47 killed after TransAsia plane crashes in typhoon-hit Taiwan - Update

A TRANSASIA Airways plane has crashed during an attempted emergency landing - killing 47 of the 58 people aboard.

Flight GE222 has crashed in the Penghu Islands, off the coast of Taiwan, after deteriorating weather conditions from Typhoon Matmo forced the jet to attempt an emergency landing.

The small TransAsia flight set-off from south Taiwan and was scheduled to land in Magong, the biggest city on China's Penghu Islands. There were 54 passengers onboard the doomed flight - four of them children - and four crew members. It was scheduled to be in the air for a total of 35 minutes.

Reports from the area suggest that the pilot's first attempt at an emergency landing failed - and that a loss of contact with air traffic control made the second attempt fatal.

The plane was found at Penghu island's Xixi village in flames, local media reported, with initial news reports claiming that the jet had crashed through a residential building during its fatal landing

The Taiwan News reports that the aircraft took off more than 90 minutes late because of the poor weather, and the pilot reportedly asked to wait until 7:06 p.m. before being allowed to land.

The plane slammed into the ground in the village, setting fire to at least two houses. Photos in the local media from the crash site showed a handful of firefighters using flashlights to look at wreckage in the darkness.

Taiwan's Transport Minister Yeh Kuang-shih put the figure at 47 missing, feared dead. So far only 10 bodies have been removed from the rubble.

"It was thunderstorm conditions during the crash," said Hsi Wen-guang, a spokesman for the Penghu County Government Fire Bureau.

"From the crash site we sent 11 people to hospital with injuries. A few empty apartment buildings adjacent to the runway caught fire, but no one was inside at the time and the fire was extinguished."

According to an official at the Civil Aeronautics Administration, air traffic control reported that the inclement weather at the time of the crash did not exceed international regulations for landing.

Visibility was 1,600 meters and the cloud cover was as low as 600 meters, added the official, who declined to be identified.

Local media are broadcasting images from the scene - including a picture of a torn fuselage, lit only by the torches of the rescue workers.

Civil aviation director Jean Shen said: "It's chaotic"

Flight GE222 was initially delayed on the runway by the adverse weather from Typhoon Matmo, which has already injured nine people with its fierce winds and downpours.

Magong, where the aircraft crashed, is the biggest city on the Penghu Islands, which lies halfway between Taiwan and mainland China.

Typhoon Matmo slammed into Taiwan on Wednesday, bringing heavy rain and strong winds, shutting financial markets and schools. It passed the island and headed into China, downgraded from typhoon to tropical storm.

TransAsia Airways is a Taiwan-based airline with a fleet of around 23 Airbus and ATR aircraft, operating chiefly short-haul flights on domestic routes as well as to mainland China, Japan, Thailand and Cambodia, among its Asian destinations.

Thursday 24 July 2014

http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/491034/Flight-GE222-Taiwan-Taiwanese-Plane-Crash-Fatal-Emergency-Landing-Island

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Telangana: 20 children killed as school bus and train collide

A passenger train rammed into a school bus at an unmanned railway crossing in Telangana's Medak district on Thursday killing at least 20 children and injuring 15 with fears the death toll could rise further, officials said.

South Central Railway officials said the accident occurred between Masayipet and Wadiaram railway stations on Secunderabad-Nizamabad section of Hyderabad division at 9.10am.

Masayipet is in Veldurti mandal of Medak district, about 70 km from Hyderabad.

The bus was ferrying at least 40 children to a private school - Kakatiya Techno School - located at Tupran. Three of the children travelling on the bus are safe.

The bus driver was also killed on the spot. The bus was dragged several hundred metres down the tracks.

Mangled remains of the bus and the bodies of the children could be seen near the tracks.

The Nanded-Secunderabad Passenger train was travelling from Nanded in Maharashtra to Hyderabad.

No one on the train was killed, officials said.

The injured were moved to nearby hospitals in Kompally.

"We are moving the kids to Hyderabad. We are making every effort to save the lives of the injured kids," said Telangana education minister Jagadeeswar Reddy at a local hospital.

Tense scenes prevailed at the accident site as the locals demanding justice – compensation and action against officials - blocked the authorities from taking away the bodies in ambulances.

Police had to resort to a mild baton-charge to control the stone pelting mob.

Locals alleged that the crossing was left unmanned despite their requests in the past.

Some of the parents who arrived at the accident site fainted after seeing their little ones.

Reports said a father of two kids, who were killed in the accident, died of heart attack after the news of the accident came in.

Telangana chief minister K Chadrasekhara Rao expressed shock over the accident and reviewed the situation with chief secretary Rajiv Sharma and director general of police Anurag Sharma.

Rao will visit Yashoda Hospital in Secunderabad where some of the injured children have been admitted.

He ordered the officials to take necessary steps to extend all medical assistance to the injured.

Telangana irrigation minister T Harish Rao and transport minister P Mahender Reddy visited a hospital where the injured were admitted and also rushed to the accident spot.

State home minister Naini Narsimha Reddy expressed his condolences.

"It is a sad incident. A thorough inquiry will be conducted and action will be taken against those responsible," he said.

Andhra Pradesh CM N Chandrababu Naidu and leader of opposition Jaganmohan Reddy expressed shock and paid their condolences over the unfortunate incident.

Reddy also visited the accident spot.

Unmanned crossings

Accidents at unmanned railway crossings are common and the Indian Railways says they happen because of negligence of road users.

There are about 14,000 unmanned crossings across the country.

Railway minister DV Sadananda Gowda had put greater emphasis on passenger safety and security in his maiden budget earlier this month.

To ensure passenger safety, funds to the tune of Rs. 40,000 crore would be required to be invested in track renewals, elimination of unmanned level crossings and construction of road under-bridges and over-bridges.

For 2014-15, Gowda has allocated Rs. 1,785 crore for the construction of road underbridges and overbridges.

Railway officials say this would go a long way in bringing down casualties at level crossings; 40% of all rail casualties occur at unmanned crossings.

The railway minister had also announced the government's decision to eliminate unmanned level crossings altogether.

Thursday 24 July 2014

http://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/20-kids-killed-as-train-rams-into-school-bus-in-telangana/article1-1243955.aspx

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Air Algerie plane goes missing an hour after leaving Burkina Faso

Air Algerie said it lost contact with one of its aircraft nearly an hour after takeoff from Burkina Faso on Thursday bound for Algiers.

"Air navigation services have lost contact with an Air Algerie plane Thursday flying from Ouagadougou to Algiers, 50 minutes after takeoff," the airline said, cited by national news agency APS.

APS gave no details on the number of passengers aboard flight AH 5017.

It said the company initiated an "emergency plan" in the search for flight AH5017, which flies the four-hour passenger route four times a week.

A company source told AFP that the missing aircraft was a DC-9, which can seat up to some 135 passengers, chartered from a Portuguese firm.

According to a source within Air Algerie, some 110 people are listed as being on board the flight. Spain's Swift Air said that 110 passengers and 6 crew members were on board the missing plane. Swift Air was operating the plane for Air Algerie.

Ougadougou is in a nearly straight line south of Algiers, passing over Mali where unrest continues in the north.

Thursday 24 July 2014

http://www.firstpost.com/world/air-algerie-plane-goes-missing-hour-leaving-burkina-faso-1632667.html

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Search for missing MH370 plane 'to continue uninterrupted' despite new Ukrainian disaster

Angus Houston heads Australia's Joint Agency Coordination Centre, which oversees the search for the ill-fated airliner that is believed to have crashed in the Indian Ocean on March 8 after veering far off course during a flight from Malaysia's capital Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

The former Australian defence chief was in the Ukrainian town of Kharkiv today as the Prime Minister's special envoy to receive the bodies of Australian victims from the MH17 plane disaster.

The Malaysia Airlines jet was shot down last week by a suspected surface-to-air missile fired by Russian-backed rebels, killing 298 people.

However, despite the new aviation disaster, the country's Transport Minister Warren Truss vowed the search for Flight MH370 "continues uninterrupted".

He said: "We remain fully committed to conducting a thorough undersea search of the likely impact zone in the Indian Ocean."

Mr Houston's deputy, Judith Zielke will oversee the co-ordination centre and keep the families of the 239 victims updated on the search's progress.

In a crucial final step before a sonar search for the missing Boeing 777's wreckage begins in September, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau will conduct seabed mapping using two survey ships covering a 60,000-square kilometre (23,000-square mile) expanse.

Officials concluded an initial search of 850 square kilometres (330 square miles) of seabed to the north was focussed in the wrong place.

The Australian government has search responsibility under international conventions for the area 1,800 kilometres (1,100 miles) off Australia's west coast, where Flight MH370 is thought to have run out of fuel and crashed.

On Monday, officials also demanded that rebels who hold the MH17 crash site in south-eastern Ukraine co-operate with an independent investigation and allow for victim's remains to be recovered in the latest tragedy.

Experts in accident investigation and victim identification have also been sent to Ukraine as well as a Boeing C-17 Globemaster military transport jet, which will transport bodies to the Netherlands for identification.

Thursday 24 July 2014

http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/490898/Search-for-missing-MH370-plane-to-continue-uninterrupted-despite-new-Ukrainian-disaster

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MH17: fears that dozens of bodies remain across crash site

Dutch police investigators said on Wednesday it could be months before they know how many sets of human remains have been recovered from the MH17 crash site.

As the first body bags of victims from the Malaysia Airlines crash were loaded into plain wooden coffins and flown back to the Dutch city of Eindhoven, investigators said they had not yet opened the bags collected by rebels.

Confusion still surrounds how many bodies of the 298 victims of the Boeing 777 have been recovered. Separatist rebels claimed to have recovered and handed over 282 bodies and more than 80 body parts, but Dutch officials estimate the tally to be far lower.

The discrepancy comes as the crash site has been deserted, even though body parts are still reported to litter the area.

Esther Naber, a spokeswoman with Dutch officers in Ukraine, said: "We don't know, that's the bottom line. We think we have approximately, 200 bodies, but it could be more."

"We will not know until we have finished the identification process and that could take months. The bags have not been opened. In certain body bags, they can be body parts from more than one person. We are talking about human remains really, not bodies."

Ms Naber said Dutch police had no idea how the separatists arrived at their earlier figure of 282 bodies. She suggested reports that bodies had "gone missing" after collection were "nonsense".

The airliner disintegrated over an area at least six miles long and covered with fields of tall crops and woodland, further hampering the task of finding remains.

On arrival in Eindhoven the bodies will then be transferred by road to the secluded Kaporaal van Oudheusden military barracks in Hilversum, around 80 miles north, for identification.

The Dutch prime minister has warned the process of identifying the remains they have could take weeks "or months" and it will only be then that they know how many sets of remains have been found.

Relatives from the Dutch victims of the flight have already been asked to provide DNA samples to aid the task.

Dutch forensic investigators are hoping to visit the crash site again later in the week to resume the search for remains. A Dutch team said they were unable to visit the site yesterday because their safety could not be guaranteed.

As of Wednesday night though, the fields of wheat and sunflowers where the plane went down were deserted of rebel fighters and the Ukrainian emergency workers who have spent days trying to find victims. A strong smell of putrefaction hung over the site, suggesting the site still held remains.

While suitcases, personal belongings and charred fragments of aircraft still littered the vast site, almost none of the wreckage has gone undisturbed in the six days since the plane went down.

Other than a single red-and-white tape stretching the length of the roadside, no effort seemed to be in place to secure the site from further disruption.

The International Committee of the Red Cross volunteered to step in to aid the search for bodies.

Dominik Stillhart, the agency's director of operations, said: "The parties to the conflict must ensure the highest possible standards are met as regards search, recovery, handling and identification of the remains, and must keep the bereaved informed throughout the process."

The British Government has also suggested that involving the Red Cross "would be a positive step".

The aid agency said it had contacted both the Ukrainian government and the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic to offer its help in managing the bodies.

Mr Stillhart said: "The ICRC is prepared to facilitate the movements and activities of the specialists until their work is complete and the remains of all victims have been recovered and identified."

Dutch investigators are also leading the international investigation into what downed the jet.

The Dutch Safety Board, leading an international team of 24 investigators, said unhindered access to the crash site is critical.

Spokesman Tjibbe Joustra said that around 25 investigators already are in Kiev analysing information including photos, satellite images and radar information, but have not yet gained access to the crash site.

He said: "We haven't yet gotten guarantees about security for our way of working. If we go we have to be able to move freely," he said. "We hope to be able to get to the site soon."

The Malaysian government and Malaysia Airlines (MAS) will continue to dedicate all available resources towards efforts to recover all human remains of the MH17 crash victims.

Transport Minister Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai said while the process of identification of bodies could at last begin for those who had been brought to the Netherlands on Wednesday, those whose remains had not been found should not be forgotten.

“Our goal now is to unite those who have perished with their families and loved ones as fast as possible while allowing investigators to continue their work at the crash site.

“We urge the search to continue for those who are still missing and pledge to exhaust all efforts to recover all human remains,” he said in a statement last night.

He said Malaysia would join the international community to discover the truth behind the incident, not only out of respect for those who lost their lives and their grieving families and loved ones, but also to prevent such atrocities from happening again and to bring those responsible to justice.

“In the meantime our priority is to support those who share a common grief while working closely with all governments, international organisations and responsible parties to help guarantee a full and thorough investigation is undertaken,” he said.

Thursday 24 July 2014

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/ukraine/10986569/MH17-fears-that-dozens-of-bodies-remain-across-crash-site.html

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