Engines on TransAsia plane failed seconds before crash

Both engines on a TransAsia flight that cartwheeled into a highway this week, killing 35 people, failed seconds after liftoff, a Taiwan aviation safety official said Friday, citing initial findings from the flight’s data recorder.

Just 37 seconds after the plane took off, its right engine shifted into idle mode, data from the flight showed. The pilot then proceeded to turn the plane’s second engine off in an attempt to restart it. Aviation websites, including Flightradar24, suspect he accidentally turned off the wrong engine.

Black box data indicate that pilots may have turned off wrong engine & lost all power 1 minute after take off #GE235 pic.twitter.com/Aj91MsHgl3

— Flightradar24 (@flightradar24) February 6, 2015

An investigation into the cause of the crash — TransAsia’s second in one year — is ongoing, but it could be months before a detailed report on the crash is released, Thomas Wang, Taiwan’s top aviation safety official said in a news conference.

“It’s only the third day, so we can’t say too much,” Wang said.

Earl Chapman of Canada’s Transportation Safety Bureau told the news conference that the plane’s engines, made by aerospace manufacturer Pratt & Whitney’s Canadian division, have a “very good safety record.”

The pilot and the co-pilot still had their hands on the plane’s controls when their bodies were found, AP reported, citingTaiwan’s ETToday online news service.

At a funeral parlor for victims, Taiwan’s vice president, Wu Den-yih,
praised the pilots for deliberately steering the plane away from people and buildings.

“When it came to when it was clear his life would end, (the pilot) meticulously grasped the flight operating system and in the final moments he still wanted to control the plane to avoid harming residents in the housing communities,” he said.

Fifteen people survived the crash with injuries, while eight people are still missing. Rescue workers continue to comb the murky river in search of bodies.