TransAsia discusses compensation with families after Taipei crash

TransAsia Airways representatives met yesterday with relatives of the victims of last week's plane crash in Taiwan to discuss compensation after it began distributing money to families of the deceased for funeral costs.

At least 40 people died after the turboprop plane crashed into the muddy Keelung River minutes after take-off on Wednesday from Taipei Songshan Airport.

Fifteen of the 58 people aboard the plane were rescued.

A memorial service will be held today and tomorrow, Central News Agency (CNA) said.

The airline said yesterday that 90 flights - all domestic - would be cancelled by today. It said there would be more cancellations this week, including 32 tomorrow, as pilots were recalled for retraining.

A spokeswoman said more of the airline's domestic flights could be hit if the tests for all 71 of its ATR pilots, which began yesterday, could not be completed in four days as scheduled.

The Civil Aeronautics Administration on Friday ordered the retraining after it emerged that pilots may have inexplicably shut off one of the two engines before Flight 235 went down.

A spokesman for France-based manufacturer ATR said yesterday that its aircraft were designed to fly on a single engine.

At the crash site, divers tried to find the bodies of the three people still missing, including a Taiwanese and two mainlanders, by using metal detectors to locate their watches or seat belts.

CNA reported that an underwater archaeological team belonging to the Academia Sinica also joined the search yesterday.

Most of the passengers were from the mainland.

A TransAsia spokeswoman, Fang Chia-wen, said a second meeting would be held on Wednesday to discuss compensation matters further.

She said the airline had already begun distributing NT$1.2 million (HK$293,000) per victim to the families of the deceased for funeral expenses.

Premier Mao Chi-kuo told Formosa TV yesterday that the priority was to find the three missing people.

Longer-term, Taiwan needed to improve "our civil aviation in terms of its management and training", he said.

Huang Han-chung, a member of the underwater search team, also told the private television station that rescuers at the crash site were using metal detectors, which had already been used to locate pieces of wreckage.

Wu Jun-hung, a Taipei fire department official, added: "Some bodies might have some metal on them, like necklaces, watches and coins, which will be detected.

"There are still four seats missing, so it's possible that the victims are still fastened in their seats by their seat belt, that they sank together with the seats to the bottom of the [river]."

Agence France-Presse, Associated Press