TranAsia, crash, Taipei

  Someone in the cockpit of a TransAsia Airways flight apparently made a mayday call because of an engine problem shortly before the plane crashed Wednesday into a river in Taiwan, killing at least 32 people.

  A male voice on a recording of radio conversations between air traffic control and TransAsia Airways Flight GE235 says, "GE235. Mayday, mayday. Engine flameout." The recording was verified by LiveATC.net, which records air traffic control feeds around the world.

  It is unclear whether the man was a pilot.

  The passenger plane clipped a bridge and plunged into a river in Taipei, according to the island's official news agency, CNA.

  Rescuers scrambled to pull survivors from the submerged wreck of the ATR 72 twin-engine turboprop aircraft, which went down shortly after takeoff from the Taiwanese capital.

  Fifty-eight people were aboard the flight when it veered out of control as it flew to Kinmen, off the coast of the Chinese province of Fujian.

  The toll, according to CNA: 32 people confirmed dead and 11 missing. The search and rescue effort continues.

 Many of the 15 people who survived the crash were injured. Two other people, who were in a car on the bridge that was clipped by the wing of the plane as it went down, also were hurt.

  The plane's cockpit crew were among those confirmed dead, authorities said.

  Crews have recovered the aircraft's "black boxes," CNA reported.

  The flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder, which is designed to retain all sounds on a plane's flight deck, were found in the tail of the plane, Ang Xingzhong, the executive director of Taiwan's Aviation Safety Council, told the news agency.

  The flight data recorder stores a vast amount of information about the aircraft's performance, including air speed and cabin pressure.

Taliban. Pakistan. Peshawar school. kill/attack

  '"God is great,'" the Taliban militants shouted as they roared through the hallways of a school in Peshawar, Pakistan.

  Then, 14-year-old student Ahmed Faraz recalled, one of them took a harsher tone.

" 'A lot of the children are under the benches,' " a Pakistani Taliban said, according to Ahmed. " 'Kill them.' "

  By the time the hours-long siege at Army Public School and Degree College ended early Tuesday evening, at least 145 people -- 132 children, 10 school staff members and three soldiers -- were dead, military spokesman Gen. Asim Bajwa said. More than 100 were injured, many with gunshot wounds, according to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province Information Minister Mushtaq Ghani.

  The death toll does not include the terrorists who attacked the school, bursting into an auditorium where a large number of students were taking an exam and gunning down many of them within minutes, Bajwa said.

  "They started shooting indiscriminately," Bajwa said, "and that's where maximum damage was caused."

  Pakistani Taliban spokesman Mohammed Khurrassani said the militants scaled the school's walls around 10 a.m. (midnight ET), intent on killing older students there.

  The Taliban had "300 to 400 people ... under their custody" at one point, said Khurrassani, whose group is called Tehreek e Taliban Pakistan, or TTP. But Bajwa said there was no hostage situation, as the attackers' focus was shooting to kill rather than taking captives.

 They were eventually met by Pakistani troops who pushed through the complex building by building, room by room. By 4 p.m., they'd confined the attackers to four buildings. A few hours later, all the militants -- seven of them, according to Bajwa -- were dead.

  Pakistani authorities spent Tuesday night inside the school in Peshawar, a city about 120 kilometers (75 miles) from the country's capital, Islamabad, looking for survivors, victims and improvised explosive devices planted to worsen the carnage.

  As they searched, they discovered that the school's principal was among the terrorists' victims.

  The attack drew sharp condemnation from top Pakistani officials, who vowed that the country wouldn't stop its war against the Taliban.

  "We are undeterred. ... We will not back off," Defense Minister Khawaja Asif told CNN.

  But he said the ambush at the school is another example of how great his nation's sacrifices have been in fighting that's raged for more than a decade.

  "Even the children are dying on the frontline in the war against terror," he said.      "The smaller the coffin, the heavier it is to carry. ... It's a very, very tragic day.