A Taiwan TransAsia plane carrying 53 passengers and five crew members crashed into a Taipei river after takeoff on Wednesday, leaving at least 23 people dead.

Photo from the Web.

 

There were 31 Chinese mainland tourists on board, the local tourism bureau said.

The plane with 58 people aboard clipped a bridge shortly after takeoff and crashed into a river in Taipei.

Pictures on the web show the plane in the water about 100 meters from the shore of Keelung River.

Local media said the flight from Taipei to Jinmen lost contact with flight controllers at about 10:55 am and the fuselage landed in the Keelung River.

The plane was identified as a French-made twin-engine turboprop ATR 72 with a two-pilot air crew.

The accident came just months after a TransAsia ATR-72 crashed while attempting to land on the island of Penghu off Taiwan's coast, killing 48 people and injuring another 10.