'Hero' pilots steered plane away from higher casualties

The pilot of crashed TransAsia Flight GE235 was hailed a hero yesterday for narrowly avoiding buildings and ditching the stalled aircraft in a river, likely averting a worse disaster.

"He really tried everything he could," Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je said of the pilot.

Captain Liao Chien-tsung, a 42-year-old father of a nine-year-old boy, was a former military pilot with more than 4,900 hours of flying experience. Liao and co-pilot Liu Zizhong, who had logged 6,922 hours, died in the crash.

Footage from a car dashboard camera showed the crippled twin-engine ART-72-600 barely clearing residential buildings close to Taipei's Songshan Airport before clipping a highway flyover and plunging into the shallow river, suggesting the pilots were trying to avoid a collision in the flight's final seconds.

"The pilot's immediate reaction saved many people," said Chris Lin, brother of one of the survivors. "I am a pilot myself and quite knowledgeable about the immediate reactions needed in this kind of situation," he said.

The aircraft was a twin-engine turboprop airliner designed to stay in the air if one engine fails. But, an acute pilot response is necessary if the engine is lost.