An interior view of Asiana Flight 214 in San Francisco yesterday.
SAN FRANCISCO/SEOUL: The pilot of the Asiana plane that crashed at San Francisco International Airport was still in training for the Boeing 777 when he attempted to land the aircraft under supervision on Saturday, the South Korean airline said.
Lee Kang-kuk was the second most junior pilot of four on board the Asiana Airlines plane. He had 43 hours of experience flying the long-range jet, the airline said. The plane’s crew tried to abort the descent less than two seconds before it hit a seawall on the landing approach to the airport, bounced along the tarmac and burst into flames.
It was Lee’s first attempt to land a 777 at San Francisco airport, although he had flown there 29 times previously on other types of aircraft, said South Korean Transport Ministry official Choi Seung-youn. Earlier, the ministry said Lee, who is in his mid-40s, had almost 10,000 flying hours.
Asiana said Lee Kang-kuk was in the pilot seat during the landing. It was not clear whether the senior pilot, Lee Jung-min, who had clocked up 3,220 hours on a Boeing 777, had tried to take over to abort the landing.
“It’s a training that is common in the global aviation industry. All responsibilities lie with the instructor captain,” Yoon Young-doo, the president and CEO of the airline, said. The plane crashed after the crew tried to abort the landing with less than two seconds to go, the US National Transportation Safety Board said.
NTSB Chairwoman Deborah Hersman said information collected from the plane’s cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder indicated there were no signs of problems until seven seconds before impact, when the crew tried to accelerate.
A stall warning, in which the cockpit controls begin to shake, activated four seconds before impact, and the crew tried to abort the landing and initiate what is known as a “go around” manoeuvre 1.5 seconds before crashing, Hersman said. She said the plane was “well below” the target air speed of 137 knots.
In a tragic twist, the San Francisco Fire Department said one of the Chinese teenagers may have been run over by an emergency vehicle as first responders reached the scene.
The two dead girls, Ye Mengyuan and Wang Linjia, were friends from the Jiangshan Middle School in Quzhou. More than 30 people remained hospitalised. Eight were listed in critical condition, including two with paralysis from spinal injuries, hospital officials said. Interior damage to the plane was extreme, Hersman said. The NTSB released photos showing the wrecked interior cabin with oxygen masks dangling from the ceiling. Reuters
