Did you know you know that there were two editions of the Straits Times this morning. The first one only carried a caption of the crash on the front page. That edition was not recalled and is available all over the island. The second one carried the more eloborate report with photos and additional reporting inside. It is availabe in certain parts of Singapore only. CNN beat Channel News Asia to the TV story. Read the BBC report for the full story.
FLIGHT SQ006, bound for Los Angeles, crashed late evening Oct 31, seconds after taking off in bad weather. A Singapore Airline spokesman in Taipei said that in addition to those killed, 84 people were injured and 48 were unaccounted for.
But in Los Angeles, an airline spokesman gave different figures, saying 49 people were killed and 69 passengers were injured.
The plane had 179 passengers and crew on board.
The pilot reported that the plane hit an object during take-off.
Local television has reported that a number of bodies had been recovered from the wreckage, and some survivors said they believed there had been deaths.
"There were definitely fatalities, there had to be fatalities," passenger John Diaz told CNN.
"Flames shot up right next to me and some poor fellow not very far from me got I guess jet fuel splashed on him, because he just lit up like a torch," Mr Diaz said.
Strong winds
The 747 had taken off in a storm at 11.18pm from Taipei's Chiang Kai Shek international airport and was hit by strong winds.
One passenger told CNN that "there was a very loud noise, the lights went out, the flames came across and we realised that at that point the plane crashed and we thought we were all going to die."
Survivors said the plane broke in two when it hit the ground.
Once the plane was on the runway, the fire was soon extinguished, officials said.
Taiwanese TV showed pictures of charred wreckage, and the airport has now been closed to all flights.
Taiwan is currently being battered by a typhoon.
Typhoon Xangsane, with wind gusts of up to 165km/h (105 mph) has brought torrential rain since the weekend.
Passengers are now asking why the plane took off in such conditions.
Singapore Airlines has an excellent reputation for safety: its long-haul flights have never crashed, although a short-haul subsidiary - SilkAir - did crash over Indonesia in 1997, killing 104 people.
Max Kingsley-Jones, commercial aviation editor at Flight International magazine, told BBC News Online that the decision to take off would be left to the pilot's discretion.
"He would make his decision based on the performance limits for the aircraft set by the manufacture and the certification authorities," for such factors as rain, wind and turbulence, he said.
As Typhoon Xangsane is expected to make landfall on Wednesday (Nov 1), officials in Taiwan have set up disaster relief centres, cancelled some flights, and warned people about possible landslides and flash floods.
This is the first major air disaster in Taiwan since 1998, when 202 people were killed in a China Airlines Airbus A300 crash.
