On July 23, 2014, TransAsia Airways passenger flight GE222, an ATR-72 airplane, registration number B-22810, took off from Kaohsiung International Airport. The aircraft crashed during approaching to Magong airport.
Thomas Wang, the Investigator-in-Charge of this occurrence, led the flight operations, maintenance, survival factors, weather and air traffic control, flight recorders, wreckage transportation and public relations group, a total of eleven people, rush to the Penghu crash scene, and established the flight GE222 occurrence investigation command post center in the Magong airport. Thereby each working group commenced the on scene investigation.
The investigation progress of flight GE222 today (7/24) for respective working group is as follows:
The flight operations group has completed part of the on scene investigation, including the preliminary examination of final approach path and the initial point of impact, gathering evidence from cockpit instrument panel and the control column (switch), and interviewed some witnesses, personnel of Air Force Weather Agency and ATC tower, and secured the relevant flight documents.
The maintenance group liaised with the flight record group to complete the accident site-survey measurement, photographing, recovering the Quick Access Recorder (QAR) and the ground Proximity Warning System (GPWS). Additionally, for the firefighting and rescue sake, the larger pieces of the wreckage and the cockpit instrument panel had to be cut into small ones, and the post-fire relocation of the wreckages were assisted by the ground handling team of the Magong Air Force base.
The survival factors group collaborated with the forensic pathologists from the prosecutor office and the forensic examination center of the criminal investigation bureau to completely compare the passenger casualties against the cabin seat layout and filed all relevant information subsequently.
The flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder were recovered on the same day of the occurrence by the firefighting and rescue units, and were carried back to the ASC office the next day afternoon by Director Su of the Occurrence Investigation Division and Director Guan of the Investigation Lab. The damaged recorders will be disassembled for subsequent data retrieval. The outer shell of these two recorders were partially damaged due to the crash impact, therefore the open of the recorders for downloading data has to be proceeded with caution. The following data retrieval process and the integrity of their read-out contents require further verification by our technical staff.
The ASC identified the event an aviation occurrence according to the Aviation Occurrence Investigation Act, and with reference to ICAO Annex 13. Several organizations were invited to join the investigation, including BEA (Bureau d'Enquêtes et d'Analyses), ATR (Avions de Transport Régional), TSB (Transportation Safety Board, Canada), and P&WC (Pratt & Whitney Canada). A total of 7 persons will arrive in Taiwan tomorrow and participate the flight GE222 organization meetings and subsequent on-scene investigations.
In the current phase of firefighting and rescue operation, TransAsia Airways and the ASC will provide the progress of the rescue and the investigation on a regular basis of press conferences in Penghu.

Sherry Liu, Engineer
Tel: 02-89127388-330
Email: sherry@asc.gov.tw