Netizens yesterday expressed gratitude to pilots of the ill-fated TransAsia Airways Flight GE235, saying that a study of the plane’s flight history suggested that the pilots tried to fly along the river to avoid crashing in residential areas.
While what caused the plane to crash into the Keelung River (基隆河) was still being investigated by authorities, many netizens on Professional Technology Temple (PTT) — the nation’s largest academic online bulletin board — commended what they said was “skillful maneuvering” by pilot Liao Chien-tsung (廖建宗) and copilots Liu Tzu-chung (劉自忠) and Hung Ping-chung (洪炳衷).
According to a screenshot taken from Flightradar24.com, a live flight-tracking Web site, and posted by a netizen going by the username JimmyMcNulty, the plane — despite swerving sharply immediately after it took off from Taipei International Airport (Songshan airport) at 10:52am — was brought close to the course of the river.
Source: Professional Technology Temple
After another sharp swerve, the pilots, apparently aware of an imminent crash, once again directed the plane over the river, where it crashed, JimmyMcNulty said.
The Web site’s record of the flight indicated that the aircraft’s altitude plummeted from 381m at 10:53am to 91m in less than one minute, just seconds before the documentation ended.
Netizens on PTT interpreted the initial swerve as the aircraft deviating from its course and lauded the pilots’ handling of the crisis.
“You can tell from the flight’s course that the pilots tried to avoid hitting residential areas by staying close to the waterway,” a netizen named eddieyu said in a comment.
“The results would have been more unimaginable if the plane had fallen in the city or crashed into the commercial building nearby,” another with the username snow730 said.
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday said it is fully aware of the situation following reports that the son of ousted Chinese politician Bo Xilai (薄熙來) has arrived in Taiwan and is to marry a Taiwanese. Local media reported that Bo Guagua (薄瓜瓜), son of the former member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, is to marry the granddaughter of Luodong Poh-Ai Hospital founder Hsu Wen-cheng (許文政). The pair met when studying abroad and arranged to get married this year, with the wedding breakfast to be held at The One holiday resort in Hsinchu
The Taipei Zoo on Saturday said it would pursue legal action against a man who was filmed climbing over a railing to tease and feed spotted hyenas in their enclosure earlier that day. In videos uploaded to social media on Saturday, a man can be seen climbing over a protective railing and approaching a ledge above the zoo’s spotted hyena enclosure, before dropping unidentified objects down to two of the animals. The Taipei Zoo in a statement said the man’s actions were “extremely inappropriate and even illegal.” In addition to monitoring the hyenas’ health, the zoo would collect evidence provided by the public
A decision to describe a Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs statement on Singapore’s Taiwan policy as “erroneous” was made because the city-state has its own “one China policy” and has not followed Beijing’s “one China principle,” Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Tien Chung-kwang (田中光) said yesterday. It has been a longstanding practice for the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to speak on other countries’ behalf concerning Taiwan, Tien said. The latest example was a statement issued by the PRC after a meeting between Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財) and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on the sidelines of the APEC summit
‘SIGN OF DANGER’: Beijing has never directly named Taiwanese leaders before, so China is saying that its actions are aimed at the DPP, a foundation official said National Security Bureau (NSB) Director-General Tsai Ming-yen (蔡明彥) yesterday accused Beijing of spreading propaganda, saying that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had singled out President William Lai (賴清德) in his meeting with US President Joe Biden when talking about those whose “true nature” seek Taiwanese independence. The Biden-Xi meeting took place on the sidelines of the APEC summit in Peru on Saturday. “If the US cares about maintaining peace across the Taiwan Strait, it is crucial that it sees clearly the true nature of Lai and the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in seeking Taiwanese independence, handles the Taiwan question with extra
RSS