Taipei Mayor Hails Pilot of Downed TransAsia Flight A Hero

City officials in Taipei, Taiwan are hailing the pilot of a TransAsia Airways flight a hero after he directed his malfunctioning plane into the Keelung River, avoiding nearby apartment and office buildings.

The incident happened on Wednesday, when TransAsia Airways flight GE235 suffered a malfunction shortly after taking off from Taipei's airport. Footage from the incident shows the plane narrowing missing apartment buildings before it clips its wing on an elevated freeway and tumbles into the Yeelung River, killing 31, with 12 people still missing.

After the black boxes and audio recordings from the flight were recovered, Taipei's Mayor Ko Wen-je is calling the pilot, 42-year-old Liao Chien-tsung, a hero who did everything in his power to steer the plane away from populated places and into the river.

"He really tried everything he could," Mayor Ko Wen-je said of the pilot, according to Reuters.

Taiwan's aviation officials are now saying that shortly before the plane crashed into the river, the pilot is heard telling ground control "mayday, mayday, engine flameout" before losing contact. According to the Associated Press, an "engine flame-out" means that the engine's flames have been extinguished and there is no longer any force driving the plane's propellers.

One survivor of the incident, Huang Jing-sun, told the Associated Press that the plane's engine didn't feel right from the beginning.

"There was some sound next to me. It did not feel right shortly after takeoff. The engine did not feel right," the 72-year-old man told a local media outlet following the crash.