Searchers are scouring the sea for survivors this evening after a Hong Kong-bound China Airlines flight with 225 passengers and crew aboard crashed shortly after take-off from Taiwan.
Naval vessels with searchlights joined military aircraft and helicopters combing the sea. Ambulances stood by in the fishing port of Penghu where yellow body bags were stacked in piles as rescuers predicted few if any survivors.
Search vessels picked up six bodies floating off the Taiwan-held Penghu islands (also known as the Pescadores) and spotted a cabin door, life vests and an oil slick, officials said.
Television networks later said more than 100 bodies had been sighted by military aircraft but this was denied by a government spokesman.
Aviation authorities said the pilot had not issued any distress signals before the plane disappeared from radar screens about 20 minutes after take-off in clear weather, raising the possibility of a sudden catastrophe.
Speculation about a mid-air explosion was heightened by television footage of farmers in the western coastal county of Changhua, 47 miles from the crash site, holding up bits of foam padding and scraps of inflight magazine pages bearing the airline's logo.
Other debris included business cards, baggage check-in stubs and a photograph.
At a command post in Penghu, Taiwan's Minster of Transportation and Communication Mr Lin Lin-san said search teams had to take advantage of the first "golden 72 hours" after the crash to find survivors at sea.
"The recovery of bodies is slow because night has fallen," said a spokesman for the search team said late this evening.
Those aboard the plane included a family of seven, a former legislator, and two journalists of the mass-circulation United Daily News.
Relatives of the victims were flying to Penghu on charter planes to help identify bodies.
The airline president said the absence of Mayday signals indicated it was unlikely mechanical problems were to blame. "If it had been mechanical problems, the pilot would have had enough time to contact the air control tower," Mr Wei Hsin-hsiung told reporters. "I can't speculate what caused the crash."
Cabinet spokesman Chuang Suo-han said: "We won't know if the plane exploded in mid-air until after we find the black box."