The two engines of Taiwan's ill-fated TransAsia flight 235 failed within seconds of each other after takeoff -- something the pilots tried to fix by trying to restart them -- but it was too little too late, the nation's top aviation safety regulator said.

Executive Director Thomas Wang of Taiwan's Aviation Safety Council presented the initial findings, based on readings from the flight data recorder, in a media briefing in the capital, Taipei, on Friday.

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He said one of the jet's engines conked out 37 seconds after it took to the skies. The pilots may have switched off the remaining engine to restart them, but the plane plummeted from the air before the engines recovered.

Wang revealed an alarm went off about half a minute the plane's right engine went idle. He said the flight data showed the engine did not "flame out" as the pilot told air traffic control, but instead went into idle mode, with steady oil pressure.

Then, 46 seconds after the right engine failed, the left one shut down, apparently by one of the pilots, so neither engine had any power to keep the plane in the sky. They tried to restart them, but the plane went down 72 seconds later.

The crash left at least 35 people aboard the flight dead with eight still missing. Rescuers pulled fifteen people out of the wreckage after the accident. A dashboard camera recorded how the ATR 72 plane struggled to ascend and grazed a highway fixture before it made a beeline for the Keelung River.

Wang did say the results are preliminary, so no conclusive findings can be made yet on why the engines lost power. He said nothing is ruled out yet because it is only the third day of the investigation.

Taipei seeks to ease tense relations with mainland China where most of the doomed flight's passengers were from and tries to save the island's reputation as a safe tourist destination.