TransAsia Crash Survivors Crawled From Wreckage, Borrowed Cell Phones

Rescue workers and firefighters search through the wreckage where Transasia Airways flight GE222 crashed the night before near the airport at Magong on the Penghu island chain on July 24, 2014. Taiwan's TransAsia Airways said on July 24 that 48 people were killed and 10 survived when one of its turboprop passenger planes crashed after an aborted landing during stormy weather. SAM YEH/AFP/Getty Images

After a week of deadly plane crashes that killed 298 people on flight MH17 and 116 passengers on Air Algerie AH 5017, the TransAsia Airways flight that crashed in Taiwan on Wednesday was different -- it had survivors. Though 48 people died during a failed landing attempt on the resort island of Penghu, 10 passengers managed to get out alive, using cellphones to communicate with loved ones soon after.

One woman, 34-year old Hung Yu-ting, managed to crawl out of the wreckage and get in touch with her family within minutes of the crash.

Workers remove the wreckage of a TransAsia Airways turboprop plane that crashed, on Taiwan's offshore island Penghu July 25, 2014. Taiwan authorities launched an investigation on Thursday into the crash in which 48 people were killed with the weather expected to be a factor in the inquiry. REUTERS/Pichi Chuang  Reuters

“She called me on the phone to say the plane had crashed and exploded but that she had already crawled out and I should come right away to get her,” her father Hung Chang-ming, who lives just a few hundred yards from the crash site, told the Associated Press. Though she was gone by the time he got there, he helped others put out fires and save other survivors.

“My daughter called me,” the mother of a different survivor said, according to RawStory. “She said ‘mum, my plane crashed.’ She said she climbed out and borrowed a phone from others.”

One local resident, Avi Putri, heard the crash and soon saw flames about 100 feet away. At first, she thought it was an electrical fire, until four Taiwanese passengers knocked on her door asking to use a phone, according to a Bloombergreport.

A worker cuts apart the wreckage of a TransAsia Airways turboprop plane that crashed, on Taiwan's offshore island Penghu July 25, 2014. Taiwan authorities launched an investigation on Thursday into the crash in which 48 people were killed with the weather expected to be a factor in the inquiry.  Reuters

Flight GE222, an ATR-72 turboprop carrying 54 passengers and four crewmembers left from the Taiwan’s southern city of Kaohsiung nearly two hours late, a delay due to bad weather from Typhoon Matmo. Though the storm had reportedly gone out to sea by the time it reached the airport on Penghu, a resort island, the pilots requested a second approach when landing, according toTaiwan’s aviation authorities.

Soon after, the plane crashed in a village near the airport’s runway, destroying some houses and catching fire. One local told Apple Daily Newspaper he heard a loud crash and soon realized the plane had crashed next to his home, damaging his house. Within minutes he smelled gasoline and saw survivors with blood on their faces.

All four crewmembers and 44 passengers died in the crash.

TransAsia Airways said it would compensate each survivor with $6,670 (200,000 Taiwan dollars) and send $33,000 (1 million Taiwan dollars) to families of each victim. 

Portraits of passengers who died in a TransAsia Airways plane crash are displayed inside a funeral parlor on Taiwan's offshore island of Penghu, July 24, 2014. Taiwan authorities launched an investigation on Thursday into the crash of a TransAsia Airways turboprop plane in which 48 people were killed with the weather expected to be a factor in the inquiry. Reuters