Flight recorder data from the TransAsia ATR 72-600 that crashed in Taipei on Wednesday indicates that a right-engine flameout occurred soon after takeoff, followed by a left-engine shutdown, according to a preliminary report released by the Taiwan’s Aviation Safety Council. The ATR 72-600 is powered by a pair of Pratt & Whitney Canada PW127M turboprop engines.
Speaking in Taipei on Friday, safety council official Thomas Wang noted that “for some reason the Number 2 [right] engine autofeathered” 37 seconds after takeoff, as the airplane climbed to 1,200 feet.
According to the report, a master warning associated with a right engine flameout procedure message on the display unit sounded. Twenty-six seconds later the pilots progressively retarded the left engine to flight idle, the data suggests, then set the left engine condition lever to the fuel shutoff position. Several stall warnings sounded over the course of six seconds. The flight crew then declared an emergency and reported an engine flameout. Roughly 30 seconds later they called several times for an engine restart, and the recorded parameters, in fact, indicate a restart of the left engine. Finally, some three minutes after takeoff, the master warning sounded and the CVR recorded an unidentified sound. Less than two seconds later, both recorders stopped recording.
The airplane crashed three minutes and 23 seconds after getting clearance at 10:51:13 a.m. to take off from Taipei’s Songshan Airport for a flight to the Taiwanese island of Kinmen.
Taiwanese officials would not speculate on why the pilots apparently shut down the left engine after the right engine failed. “The investigator in charge of this occurrence emphasized the objective of the investigation is to prevent reoccurrence of a similar occurrences,” said the report. “It is not the purpose of such investigation to apportion blame or liability.”
Video footage of the event taken by a motorist driving on an elevated roadway in Taipei’s Nangang District shows the 72-seat turboprop banking sharply left, barely missing an apartment building and clipping with its left wing the top of a taxi traveling on the overpass before diving into the Keelung River. Rescue crews on the scene minutes after the crash pulled 15 survivors from the wreckage. Search crews have now recovered 35 bodies, leaving eight more occupants missing.