Taiwan Plane Survivor Crawls Out Of Wreckage, Calls Dad
A plane crash survivor from Taiwan’s worst air disaster in more than 10 years crawled out of the wreckage and called her father to tell him she was alive. TransAsia Airways Flight GE222 crashed in bad weather while attempting an emergency landing on the remote Penghu island chain in the Taiwan Strait between Taiwan and China, killing 58 people on board.
In what has become a string of air disasters in recent weeks, this latest crash is being blamed on bad weather from a powerful typhoon that brought torrential rain to the region. The ATR 72 twin turboprop was traveling from Kaohsiung, carrying 48 passengers and crew members, when it crashed on Wednesday night, local time.
Out of the 58 passengers who boarded the Taiwan plane crash, 10 survived, including a 34-year-old woman who was able to crawl out of the wreckage, walk to a nearby residence, and call her father to tell her she was alive. Hung Yu-ting’s father recalls how his daughter escaped through a hole in the fuselage, telling reporters:
“She called me on the phone to say the plane had crashed and exploded but that she had already crawled out and I should come right away to get her. When I was halfway there the fire was still really big, but it was smaller when I arrived on the scene. There were two other injured outside and the first ambulance had already taken away three, including my daughter.”
Hung Chang-ming helped first responders put out the raging fire, which engulfed the plane that crashed in Taiwan and rescued other survivors before going to the hospital to visit his daughter. Although her condition is not known, the survivor suffered burns to her arms, legs, and back during her ordeal.
As lucky as the survivor from the Taiwan plane crash was, hundreds of other family members of the 48 people killed are mourning the loss of their loved ones in a scene that has become all too common in other air disasters. Many are recalling the last time they spoke to their relatives before they boarded the plane.
The victims of the plane crash include 46 Taiwanese nationals and two French medical students, the latter of whom were working as interns. Out of the 10 survivors, seven reportedly were able to crawl out of the wreckage, which was burning at the time. According to TransAir, one of those survivors has been released from the hospital and sent home.
Even though there were 10 survivors, the Taiwan plane crash is the deadliest accident since 2002, when a China Airlines crashed on take-off killing 225 people on board. Investigators have been able to recover the cockpit and voice recorders — known as the black boxes — as they continue to look into the reasons for the crash.
[Image via Twitter]
