TAIWAN authorities launched an investigation 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.

    The plane, a 70-seat ATR 72, crashed Wednesday evening near the runway while trying to land on a small island of Penghu, west of Taiwan, after a typhoon had passed earlier in the day.

    The aircraft had 54 passengers and four crew on board. Two of the dead were French, the French Foreign Ministry said, and 10 people were injured and taken to hospital.

    Chinese President Xi Jinping and Taiwan leader Ma Ying-jeou have offered their condolences over the deaths.

    Taiwan’s civil aviation authorities said the weather had been suitable for flying.

    “There were nine flights on the same route between 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. yesterday. Only the TransAsia flight crashed,” said Jean Shen, director of the Civil Aeronautics Administration, on Thursday.

    “The weather reports showed it was totally OK for landing,” she said, adding that authorities were not ruling anything out.

    Both black boxes had been found and officials would begin examining them later in the day, she said.

    Alison Kao, a TransAsia spokeswoman, said the weather could have been a factor but the airline was not jumping to any conclusions before the investigation.

    The aircraft took off from Kaohsiung, heading for Makong airport in the Penghu islands, but it crashed just short of the runway on its second attempt to land during a thunder storm. No one on the ground was hurt.

    Taiwan has had a poor record for aviation safety over the last two decades, though it has improved recently after the government tightened safety measures.

    TransAsia had been involved in eight “incidents” since 2002, according to data on the website of the Aviation Safety Council. It had a fatal accident in 2002 when a cargo plane carrying two pilots crashed into the sea.

    TransAsia and bigger rivals, China Airlines and Eva Airways, have been facing pressure from higher energy prices and increasingly popular budget airlines.

    TransAsia Airways is a Taiwan-based airline with a fleet of about 23 Airbus and ATR aircraft, operating chiefly short-haul flights on domestic routes. (SD-Agencies)