Today, TransAsia Airways Flight GE222 (departing daily at 16:00 from Kaohsiung KHH/RCKH, arriving at Magong MZG/RCQC at 16:35) was involved in a major accident. According to reports, there were 54 passengers and 4 crew members on board, resulting in 47 fatalities and 11 injuries.

According to various media sources, due to the impact of a typhoon today, the flight was delayed until 17:43 before takeoff. Due to weather conditions, the aircraft was unable to land and circled in the air. Until 19:06, when Magong Airport received a request for a go-around from the aircraft, but subsequently lost contact, and it disappeared from radar.

Preliminary analysis suggests that due to poor weather and visibility, after the go-around, the aircraft attempted a forced landing in Xixi Village, Xixiang, Penghu County, approximately 1 kilometer from the Runway. The attempt failed, the aircraft caught fire and was damaged, and two residential houses were affected.

TransAsia Airways owns a total of 9 ATR 72 aircraft. It is reported that the aircraft involved in this accident had the registration number B22810 and was 14 years old, having been manufactured in June 2000. The model is an ATR 72-500 (72-212A), powered by 2 Pratt & Whitney Canada PW127F engines, and can carry 4 crew members and 54 passengers. Additionally, the ATR 72 is a twin-engine turboprop civil aircraft manufactured by the French-Italian joint venture ATR. To date, a total of 678 units have been produced, and this is the 17th aircraft to be lost (pending verification).

The flight route of GE222 is roughly as follows, Alternatively, you can refer to the playback function on planefinder.net.

Additionally, according to documents from the Taiwan Aviation Safety Council (ASC), B22810 once returned to Songshan Airport after takeoff due to smoke in the cabin. The cause of that incident was that maintenance personnel did not follow the mandatory inspection items to perform checks, resulting in the fuel nozzle being installed backwards. However, it is estimated that the cause of this accident is likely more influenced by weather.

I could not find the METAR for Magong Airport online, so I looked at the weather map issued by the Japan Meteorological Agency. A strong wind warning can be seen over the Taiwan Strait on the afternoon of the 23rd. The meteorological conditions at the airport at that time must have been very severe. It is strange why GE222 did not return to the departure airport or divert to another airport.

I also found a radar image on Sina Weibo taken about 20 minutes after the accident occurred. A red area can be seen near Magong Airport, predicting the existence of dangerous clouds and strong winds there.

Update July 26: Thanks to friend elexia66 for providing the METAR information for that day,

2014/07/23 11:00:00 UTC : RCQC 231100Z 22011G21KT 1600 TSRA SCT002 BKN006 FEW012CB OVC016 23/22 Q0997 : NOSIG RMK A2945 RERA TS OVHD STNRY=

From this, we can see that at the time there was a strong crosswind, low clouds, low Visibility, rain, thunderstorms (TSRA), and low pressure. These flight conditions were truly severe.

There is also a radar map from the Central Weather Bureau, showing that Penghu was located right in the red zone.

TransAsia ATR-72 crashed at Magong, Taiwan during Typhoon Matmo, 47 reported dead https://t.co/vsODxthUDL pic.twitter.com/gXpQfch2X7

— AviationSafety (@AviationSafety) July 23, 2014

According to the description of Magong Airport in the Taiwan EAIP below, http://eaip.caa.gov.tw/eaip/history/2014-07-10/html/eAIP/RC-AD-2.RCQC-zh-TW.html When landing on Runway 20, there is no ILS. The available procedures are NDB RWY20, VOR RWY20, and RNAV(GNSS) RWY20.

It is unknown which method GE222 was using at the time. The ATR is considered a Category B aircraft. Taking VOR RWY20 as an example, for a Straight-In approach, the MINIMA is an Obstacle Clearance Altitude (OCA) of 330 feet and an Obstacle Clearance Height (OCH) of 284 feet, with a Visibility of 1600 meters. For Circling, the MINIMA is an OCA of 620 feet, an OCH of 517 feet, and a Visibility of 2800 meters. Perhaps the data on the METAR barely allowed for a landing, but in actual flight, a go-around was inevitable. Subsequently, encountering wind shear resulted in insufficient Lift, leading to the crash.

Update December 27, 2014 The Taiwan government’s Aviation Safety Council released a preliminary report on the TransAsia crash that occurred in Penghu this July, indicating that the aircraft veered in the wrong direction and deviated from the Runway. 1905:44, altitude 219 ft, Autopilot disengage (AP disengage), Descent rate showing -100 ft/min 1905:54, aircraft reached the Missed Approach Point (MAP4), altitude 176 ft 1905:58, Captain asked: “Do you see the Runway?” 1905:59, aircraft altitude returned to 192 ft, Yaw Damper disengaged, aircraft Heading turned from 207° to 188°, began a bank of 10 to 20 degrees to the left, and aircraft Attitude increased from 0.5° nose down to a maximum of approximately -9° nose down 1906:03, aircraft altitude was 162 ft, Heading 197°, left bank approximately 19° 1906:07, First Officer replied: “No”, 1 second later the Captain also said: “No”, 2 seconds later the First Officer replied again: “No [Instructor/Captain]” 1906:11, altitude 72 ft, both flight crew members called simultaneously: “go around”, and throttle was added 1906:13, unidentified sound appeared in the cockpit 1906:16, First Officer called Tower: “go around go around” 1906:18.9, Flight recorder recording stopped

Looking at the image above, it can be seen that when the pilot disengaged the Yaw Damper (at YD disengage in the graph), the aircraft’s Attitude changed, and subsequently the aircraft continued to deviate from the Runway direction. However, according to the cockpit dialogue, both pilots seemed to focus their attention on observing the outside, looking for the Runway in low Visibility conditions, and possibly failed to notice the change in aircraft Attitude; the onboard altitude alert system also did not seem to emit an electronic warning tone (was it manually switched off or was it a malfunction?), failing to alert the pilots in time. When they decided to go around, the altitude was already too low to recover in time. The bank of the aircraft also prevented it from obtaining enough Lift, ultimately resulting in the crash.

According to the approach chart, the MDA (Minimum Descent Altitude) was 330 feet, but the aircraft’s altitude was clearly below this level. It is unclear why the pilots did not execute a missed approach earlier. Of course, the above is merely my personal speculation. The final analysis and investigation report on the exact cause of the crash is expected to be released next October.

You can view the detailed investigation report here; the content is entirely in English.

This article will continue to be updated.