Crashed TransAsia plane’s fuselage hoisted from Keelung river in Taipei

Rescuers used a crane to hoist the wrecked fuselage of a TransAsia Airways plane from a shallow river in Taiwan’s capital last night as they searched for a number of people missing in a crash that killed at least 31 others.

Flight 235 with 58 people on board — most of them from China — banked sharply on its side shortly after takeoff from Taipei, clipped a highway bridge, and then careened into the Keelung River.

Rescuers in rubber rafts pulled 15 people alive from the wreckage in daylight. After dark, they brought in the crane, and the death toll was expected to rise once crews were able to search through submerged portions of the fuselage, which came to rest a few dozen metres from the shore.