French women who died in Penghu crash were on exchange program

Taipei, July 24 (CNA) Two French women who died in a TransAsia Airways plane crash in the outlying island county of Penghu were on an exchange program in Taiwan, France's representative office in Taiwan said Thursday.

They were on a one-month exchange program in Taiwan in the area of medicine and both were 23 years old, according to the French Office in Taiwan.

France's representative to Taiwan Olivier Richard learned of the pair's death from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs the previous night, the office said.

The office could not provide the women's names but TransAsia Airways earlier identified them as Jeromine Deramond and Penelope Luternauer.

National Taiwan University (NTU) said the two were apparently on their way to Penghu for sightseeing after finishing their study at the university a week ago.

Wu Ming-Shiang, chairman of the NTU School of Medicine, said the students had served as clinical interns at NTU Hospital for about a month.

Their luggage was packed as they wound up their stay in Taiwan but the university did not know they were going to Penghu before returning to France, said Wu.

Dearmond and Luternauer were among the 48 people killed when TransAsia Airways flight GE222 crashed near the airport in Penghu at about 7 p.m. Wednesday in stormy conditions. Ten more people were injured.

The flight took off from Kaohsiung in southern Taiwan for the half-hour flight when Penghu was still under the influence of Typhoon Matmo.

(By Elaine Hou and Chen Ching-fang)ENDITEM/J

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