San Francisco plane crash: 2 dead identified as teens from China

U.S. officials examined flight information recorders and began investigating the crash of an Asiana Airlines?Boeing?777?that burst into flames upon landing in?San Francisco, killing two young passengers and injuring more than 180 people, officials said on Sunday.

There was no immediate indication of the cause of Saturday's accident but Asiana said mechanical failure did not appear to be a factor. The airline declined to blame either the pilot or the?San Franciscocontrol tower.

Eric Weiss, a spokesman for the?National Transportation Safety Board, said the plane's "black boxes" - the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder - had been recovered and were being sent to Washington for analysis. The?Federal Aviation Administration?also was investigating.

NTSB Chairman?Deborah Hersman?said on Sunday there was no indication of a criminal act but it was too early to determine what went wrong.

"Everything is still on the table," she said on NBC's "Meet the Press."

Witnesses said the tail of the plane, which was coming in from?Seoul, appeared to hit the approach area of the runway that juts into?San Francisco?Bay. One witness said the plane appeared to be coming in too low and too fast.

The tail came off and the aircraft appeared to bounce violently, scattering a trail of debris before coming to rest on the tarmac.

Pictures taken by survivors showed passengers hurrying away from the wrecked plane. Thick smoke billowed from the fuselage and TV footage later showed the aircraft gutted and blackened by fire. Much of its roof was gone.

The dead were both teenage female Chinese nationals who had been seated at the rear of the aircraft, according to government officials in?Seoul?and Asiana.

The crash was the first fatal accident involving the?Boeing?777, a popular long-range jet that has been in service since 1995. It was the first fatal commercial airline accident in the?United States?since a regional plane operated by?Colgan Air?crashed in New York in 2009.

"For now, we acknowledge that there were no problems caused by the 777-200 plane or (its) engines,"Yoon Young-doo, the president and CEO of the airline, told reporters on Sunday at the company headquarters on the outskirts of?Seoul.

Asiana said the flight, which had originated in?Shanghai, had carried 291 passengers and 16 crew members. The passengers included 141 Chinese, 77 South Koreans, 61 U.S. citizens and one Japanese citizen but the airline did not give the nationality of the others.

Dale Carnes, assistant deputy chief of the?San Francisco Fire Department, said 49 people were hospitalized with serious injuries. Another 132 suffered moderate and minor injuries.

Five people were in critical condition at?San Francisco General Hospital, according to spokeswomanRachael Kagan. She said a total of 52 people were treated for burns, fractures and internal injuries. Three people were critical at?Stanford Hospital.

San Francisco International Airport, a major?West Coast?hub and gateway to?Asia, was shut down for several hours after the crash as scores of safety workers scoured the airfield for debris.

'TOO LOW AND TOO FAST'

Survivor?Benjamin Levy?told a local NBC station he believed the Asiana plane had been coming in too low.

"I know the airport pretty well, so I realized the guy was a bit too low, too fast, and somehow he was not going to hit the runway on time, so he was too low ... he put some gas and tried to go up again," he said in a telephone interview.

"But it was too late, so we hit the runway pretty bad, and then we started going up in the air again, and then landed again, pretty hard."

Levy said he opened an emergency door and ushered people out. "We got pretty much everyone in the back section of the plane out," he said. "When we got out there was some smoke. There was no fire then. The fire came afterward."

Source: http://www.sun-sentinel.com/chi-san-francisco-plane-crash-20130706,0,1990278.story?track=rss

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