The other 30 passengers remain unaccounted for as the rescue operation on the Keeling River in the capital city of Taipei continues.

Terrifying footage of the disaster, filmed by a passing motorist's dashboard camera, has emerged and shows the ATR 72-600 turboprop domestic flight, reportedly with 58 people on board, plunging into the water only three minutes after taking off from an airport which was 5km away.

Many passengers are still believed to be trapped inside the TransAsia Airways GE235 plane while those that have been rescued have been taken to hospital,The Straits Times reports. 

Civil aviation officials said the flight took off at 10:53 am and lost contact with controllers two minutes later. 

An official from the national fire agency told AFP at least three people showed 'no life signs' when rescue crews first arrived at the accident site.

'Three people showed no heartbeat and other life signs when they were rescued,' Lin Kuan-cheng said.

Wu Jun-hong, a Taipei Fire Department official who was coordinating the rescue, said the missing people were still in the fuselage or had been pulled downriver.

'At the moment, things don't look too optimistic,' Wu told reporters at the scene. 'Those in the front of the plane are likely to have lost their lives.'

More than 170 emergency personnel, including five rescue teams from the local fire crew, have been sent to Nanyang Bridge where they are using inflatable speed boats to access the crash site and assist in the rescue operation, according to The Straits Times.

Wu said that the 27 metre long plane would have its head retrieved from the river by a crane during the rescue operation, according to The Guardian.

On board the plane were  53 passengers and five crew, 31 of whom were tourists from mainland China.

A taxi driver was also taken to hospital after suffering severe head injuries and concussion when the plane crushed his vehicle before colliding with the bridge, The Guardian reports. 

(dailymail.co.uk)