Bereaved families of 40 people killed in last week’s TransAsia Airways plane crash in Taiwan will hold a religious ceremony tonight to honour the dead as the bodies of three victims were repatriated to mainland China.
The move came as the search continued at the scene of Wednesday's crash, along the Keelung River, outside Taipei, for three people on Flight GE235 who are still missing.
Officials said the remains of the three Chinese victims, accompanied by relatives, departed for Fujian province`s Xiamen Taiwan`s Taoyuan Airport. These bodies were the first to be repatriated, Xinhua reported.
TransAsia Airways flight GE235, en route to Kinmen, a small archipelago of several islands, from Taipei with 53 passengers and five crew on board, crashed in the Keelung river after its wing clipped a taxi on an elevated freeway, 10 minutes after takeoff.
At least 40 people were killed, 15 survived and three are still missing. Among the 53 passengers, 31 were Chinese tourists and 22 were Taiwanese.
“They were keen to take the remains [of their loved ones] back home for their own memorial and funeral services, so we helped to arrange for them to board a plane bound for Xiamen at about 8.40am this morning," a bureau official said.
The families of the other 26 mainland victims that have been found had yet to decide if their relatives would be cremated in Taiwan, said TransAsia Airways, which added that it would offer transportation assistance if needed.
Buddhist masters from Fo Guang Shan Monastery, in Kaohsiung, will recite sutras during the ritual at 9pm in Taipei, which according to Chinese custom allows the deceased to have a last reunion with their families.
An official funeral for friends, relatives and members of the public to mourn the dead would held at Taipei’s Second Funeral Parlour tomorrow at 3pm, TransAsia Airways said.
The airline’s officials said it would negotiate with the families of the dead and injured about the level of compensation on Wednesday.
Fifteen people, including three mainland tourists and a female flight attendant, were rescued when Flight GE235, with 58 people on board, clipped a bridge and crashed into the muddy Keelung River, in Taipei, soon after taking off from Taipei Songshan Airport on Wednesday.
“Compensation payments for both the local and the mainland passengers will be the same,” said Liu Chung-chi, a TransAsia spokesman, adding that such an issue would discussed only after all the funeral services were completed.
The level of compensation is expected to be no less than the NT$14.9 million (HK$3.65 million) paid to each of the families of 48 people killed in July when another TransAsia plane crashed in Taiwan’s tourist resort island of Penghu.
Meanwhile, the family of pilot Liao Chien-tsung – hailed a hero for managing to avoid highly populated areas before the crash when the aircraft developed engine problems – have held his funeral.
Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je, who paid tribute to Liao for helping to save the lives of at least 200,000 Taipei residents, also attended the ceremony.
However, initial findings of Taiwan’s Aviation Safety Council show that after one of the two engines of Fight GE235 developed a problem, instead of fixing the problem, the second engine of the turboprop aircraft was shut down.
The aircraft had no engine power for 72 seconds.
Monday 9 February 2015
http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1708179/bereaved-honour-taiwan-plane-crash-dead-bodies-three-mainland-victims
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