Taiwan plane crash toll rises to 35; VP visits funeral home - U-T San Diego

By RALPH JENNINGS Associated Press11:54 p.m.Feb. 5, 2015

Relatives from mainland China react as they watch divers recover bodies at the site of a commercial plane crash in Taipei, Taiwan, Friday, Feb. 6, 2015. TransAsia Airways Flight 235 clipped a bridge shortly after takeoff and crashed into a river in the island's capital of Taipei on Wednesday morning. (AP Photo/Wally Santana)

Search and rescue divers continue to search for missing persons at the site of a commercial plane crash in Taipei, Taiwan, Friday, Feb. 6, 2015. TransAsia Airways Flight 235, with 58 people aboard, clipped a bridge shortly after takeoff and crashed into a river in the island's capital of Taipei on Wednesday morning. (AP Photo/Wally Santana)The Associated Press

Search and rescue divers continue to search for missing persons at the site of a commercial plane crash in Taipei, Taiwan, Friday, Feb. 6, 2015. TransAsia Airways Flight 235, with 58 people aboard, clipped a bridge shortly after takeoff and crashed into a river in the island's capital of Taipei on Wednesday morning. (AP Photo/Wally Santana)

Search and rescue divers carry a recovered body at the site of a commercial plane crash in Taipei, Taiwan, Friday, Feb. 6, 2015. TransAsia Airways Flight 235 with 58 people aboard clipped a bridge shortly after takeoff and crashed into a river in the island's capital of Taipei on Wednesday morning. (AP Photo/Wally Santana)The Associated Press

Search and rescue divers carry a recovered body at the site of a commercial plane crash in Taipei, Taiwan, Friday, Feb. 6, 2015. TransAsia Airways Flight 235 with 58 people aboard clipped a bridge shortly after takeoff and crashed into a river in the island's capital of Taipei on Wednesday morning. (AP Photo/Wally Santana)

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — Divers pulled four bodies Friday from the river where a TransAsia Airways propjet crashed shortly after takeoff from Taiwan's capital, raising the death toll to 35 while relatives gathered on the riverbank wailed in anguish.

Helicopters helped scan the river for eight people still missing. Fifteen survived with injuries in the crash Wednesday, moments after the pilots reported engine trouble.

Taiwan's Vice President Wu Den-yih, mindful of the island's reputation as a tourist destination and its tense relations with China where most of the flight's passengers were from, went to a Taipei funeral parlor for a prayer sessions to pay respects.

At the parlor, where bodies are being stored and which drew a trickle of victims' relatives, Wu expressed condolences and praised the pilot Liao Chien-chung, who died in the crash. The pilots may have deliberately steered the plane away from buildings and into the river in the final moments.

"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," Wu said.

"To the plane's crew, the victims, ... I here express condolences."

Divers with a local fire agency found one female and three male bodies before noon in poor underwater visibility along the muddy Keelung River bottom about 50 meters from the crash site, a Taipei City Fire Department official surnamed Chen said.

The agency suspects the eight missing bodies may be in equally murky spots and has sent 190 divers to look for them. Taiwan's Ministry of National Defense dispatched three S-70C rescue helicopters to search along a Taipei river system that runs into the ocean off Taiwan's northwest coast.

More than 30 relatives of victims cried wildly, prayed or were comforted by Buddhist volunteers at the riverside crash site as divers in black wet suits brought back the four bodies. Some divers came ashore with hands crossed to pray for the people they brought back.

The pilot's and co-pilot's bodies were found earlier with joysticks still in their hands, Taiwan's ETToday online news service said.

Shortly after the doomed flight's takeoff before 11 a.m. Wednesday, one of the pilots issued a "Mayday, mayday, engine flameout" distress call. Flameout normally indicates that flames have been extinguished in the combustion chamber of the engine, shutting it down and not driving the propeller.

Video images of Flight GE235's final moments in the air captured on car dashboard cameras show the left engine's propeller at standstill as the aircraft turned sharply, its wings going vertical and clipping a highway bridge before plunging into the river.

Taiwan's Aviation Safety Council has started investigating causes for the crash, a process likely to take up to a year but with few obstacles expected.

"Our process usually takes about one year or a year and a half, faster than in other countries," said an Aviation Safety Council official who declined to be named. "According to our procedure, I don't expect anything to special about this investigation."

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