Two French nationals die in Taiwan plane crash

Two French passengers were killed in the recent TransAsia Airways plane crash in which 48 people died, a French government official said Thursday.

"According to the information we have, two French women studying medicine were on board. They were in Taipei since June," Foreign Ministry spokesperson Romain Nadal told local broadcaster Europe1.

According to regional daily La Voix du Nord, the two victims were identified as Penelope Luternauer and Jeromine Deramond, both aged 23 years and students at Lille Catholic University in northern France.

The aircraft, carrying 54 passengers and four crew members, crashed on Wednesday evening near the runway following a failed emergency landing on the island of Penghu, west of Taiwan.

The fatal crash, likely to have been caused by bad weather, killed 48 passengers and wounded 10 others.