The moment a TransAsia Airways airplane came down in Taiwan has been caught on several terrifying dashboard videos. The plane, carrying 58 people heading to the island of Kinmen, crashed shortly after takeoff on February 4, 2015, after narrowly missing a series of high-rise buildings and clipping a taxicab and freeway bridge before crashing into a river. Half of the passengers on the plane survived the violent crash.
Below is the dashcam video shot from the automobile closest to the event. This video was shot from a car travelling behind the taxi that was clipped by the crashing airplane.
Below is a video shot from the second closest car. The braking car in front is the source of the first video above. In this video, you can see the car in front braking hard to avoid being hit by the crashing plane. The video also contains footage of the damaged taxicab and taxi driver who came within inches of being hit by the airplane’s wing.
Finally, a third video of the plane crash was captured by a vehicle several hundred yards away from the crash. The video, however, did capture a unique view of the airplane as it plummeted from the sky. In the video, watch the sky on the left-hand frame of the video. The tiny speck is the airplane as it comes into view (I’ve included post-processing zooms after the original segment).
No official analysis has been revealed yet, but video and photos of the crash seem to hint that the plane’s left propeller was not operating indicating a potential engine failure on the left side. Regardless, given the avoidance of the high-rise buildings and sharp turn above the bridge, it looks to me like the pilot may have purposely (and heroically) navigated the plane into the river, likely to minimize loss of life.
