Taiwan TransAsia plane crashes

Dramatic video footage emerged showing the TransAsia Airways plane clipping a bridge as it came down shortly after take-off from a Taipei airport.
The plane, carrying 58 people, broke up as it plunged into Taipei's Keelung River. The fuselage was later salvaged by crane.
There were 15 survivors pulled from the wreckage but 12 people remain missing.

John Sudworth reports: "This is no longer a rescue mission, but a recovery operation"

Television footage showed some passengers wading clear of the sunken wreckage and a toddler being pulled out alive by rescuers.
Emergency teams cut open the plane while it was in the water but were unable to reach the passengers trapped in the front section of the fuselage.
As night fell, a crane was used to lift the wreckage on to the bank. The death toll was expected to rise as rescue teams searched the fuselage and the river for the 12 missing passengers.
"At the moment, things don't look too optimistic," Wu Jun-hong, a Taipei fire department official coordinating the rescue effort told reporters.

 

 

The ATR-72 turbo-prop plane had just taken off from Taipei Songshan Airport and was heading to the Kinmen islands, just off the coast of the south-eastern Chinese city of Xiamen.
It is the second TransAsia ATR-72 to crash in seven months, following an accident last July which killed 48 people and injured 15.
The final communication from the pilots to air traffic control was "Mayday, mayday, engine flame out", according to a recording played on local media. The recording was not immediately verified by aviation officials.

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HIV, Chinese government assures care

China's AIDS fight

Some 780,000 people are living with HIV/AIDS in China, according to the latest count by the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) in 2011.

People living with HIV or AIDS in China face widespread discrimination and stigma, especially in rural areas where there is a lack of education about the disease.

China has sought to tackle the stigma by establishing laws and regulations prohibiting discrimination against people with HIV.

China's First Lady Peng Liyuan who was appointed World Health Organization's goodwill ambassador for AIDS in 2011, has appeared in public advertisements holding hands and playing with HIV-positive children.

Despite China's fight against AIDS, cases such as Kunkun's suggest inconsistency with official policy.

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Two stormy weeks in Chinese aviation

 

Chinese government not amused

The China National Tourism Administration issued a stern statement after the Air Asia episode, saying it had "severely damaged the overall image of Chinese people" and demanding local authorities review the case.

Air rage is a common sight in delay-prone China.

In recent years, state media has reported numerous dramatic incidents involving irate passengers, ranging from blocking moving aircraft on an active runway to fistfights with airport employees.

During an official visit to the Maldives in September, President Xi Jinping personally asked Chinese tourists to behave themselves while traveling abroad.

Last year the government released a lengthy list of do's and don'ts aimed at turning Chinese travelers into "civilized tourists."

All the warnings and cajoling seem to have fallen on deaf ears, though.

Quickest way off a plane? Emergency exit!

Impatient or lacking fresh air or ... something ... Chinese passengers in separate incidents in the past two weeks decided to deal with their "stuck on a plane" dilemmas in unexpected fashion.

Upon landing in Sanya on December 8 after a China Eastern flight from Xi'an, a fidgety passenger not content to suffer through the excruciating disembarkation process -- Don't judge! We've all been there! -- went ahead and opened the emergency exit door, engaging the aircraft's inflatable slide.

Xinhua news agency said the reason for the man's action was unknown, but The Nanfang website from southern China reported that the passenger said he simply wanted to depart the plane sooner.

His solution, to borrow loosely from Jane Austen, did display a certain amount of sense, if not sensibility.

Regardless, the shortcut cost the airline $16,000 and a two-hour delay, according to Xinhua.

That unauthorized exit was followed by an incident on December 14 during which a first-time flier on a Xiamen Air flight reportedly felt the urge for some fresh air while waiting for his plane to take off.

His fix? Open the emergency door for better ventilation.

The man wasn't fined or punished because the act didn't cause any damage, stated the airline.

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