This set of screen grabs taken from video provided courtesy of TVBS Taiwan shows a TransAsia ATR 72-600 turboprop plane approaching and clipping an elevated motorway before crashing into the Keelung river on Wednesday. Photo: AFP

A TransAsia Airways flight carrying 58 passengers and crew members departing from Taipei, Taiwan on Wednesday crashed into a river just minutes after take-off, killing at least 25 people.

Flight GE235, which took off at 10:53 am Wednesday, traveling from Taipei to Kinmen Island off the coast of Fujian Province, crashed into the Keelung River minutes after taking off and hitting a motorway overpass, destroying a taxi.

A total of 53 passengers and five crew members were on board. As of 10 pm local time, Taiwan authorities announced 25 people were dead, with 15 others injured and 18 still missing.

The 52-year-old taxi driver and his 26-year-old female passenger were also injured. Their conditions are stable, local news portal setn.com reported.

Of the 53 passengers, 31 were from the Chinese mainland.

Rescue teams from the fire service, the department of defense and the coast guard have been deployed.

A Global Times reporter at the scene saw that a large part of the fuselage was stuck in the river bed.

Firemen at the scene told reporters that they believed some passengers are trapped in the fuselage, adding that the rescue operation has been hampered by poor underwater visibility and the difficulty of entering through the plane's narrow door, local media reported. Cranes have been deployed to assist the rescue effort.

The chief executive of TransAsia and its senior executives apologized to the public Wednesday, bowing to show their responsibility at a press conference. The cause of the crash is still unknown.

Fu Hsi-yao, a spokesperson for the Civil Aeronautics Administration of Taiwan, told the Global Times that the causes of the crash could be complicated and must be investigated by the Aviation Safety Council, but he stressed that the airplane's pilots were all experienced.

According to Taiwan's transportation authorities, the captain had nearly 5,000 hours of flight experience and his co-pilot had nearly 7,000 hours. The plane was nine months old and had last received maintenance on January 16.

The local media has speculated that the crash was due to engine failure as footage taken by an onlooker showed that the aircraft was flying with its left wing pointing directly at the ground before it crashed, but aviation experts have said this is unlikely.

Wang Jiangmin, an aviation expert, told the Global Times that most small airplanes' engines are manufactured by big companies from the US, Canada and Brazil, and are generally reliable.

But he pointed out that taking off and landing are the most dangerous times for airplanes as there are more external factors affecting the aircraft.

The aircraft's black boxes have been recovered. Wang said it will take months to finish analyzing them.

Since 2002, TransAsia has had 10 flight accidents and the crash comes just seven months after another TransAsia plane crashed on Taiwan's Penghu Island, killing 48 of the 58 passengers and crew members on board.