By Gaurav Raghuvanshi 

The type of aircraft that crashed in Taiwan on Wednesday is a "highly stable" plane able to land and take off on short runways, according to an aviation expert.

"The ATR-72 can come to a dead stop on a very short runway. It's landing speed is much lower than jets. It's a highly maneuverable plane that's used for inhospitable terrains," Mark Martin of Martin Consulting, an aviation advisory firm, told The Wall Street Journal.

A twin-engine turboprop, the ATR-72 can seat as many as 74 passengers four abreast. The planes fly at lower altitudes and speeds and are more fuel efficient per seat than bigger jet aircraft.

The aircraft is made by ATR, a partnership of Airbus Group and Alenia Aermacchi, a Finmeccanica Group company. The company currently has 180 customers in more than 90 countries.

ATR has in hand orders for 325 planes valued at US$8 billion at list prices. ATR customers in Asia include India's Jet Airways Ltd., Firefly, a unit of Malaysia Airlines, and Wings Air, a unit of Indonesia's budget carrier Lion Air. Last week, ATR announced an order for 12 planes from Myanmar's Myanma Airways.

Write to Gaurav Raghuvanshi at gaurav.raghuvanshi@wsj.com

Subscribe to WSJ: http://online.wsj.com?mod=djnwires