Pilots quizzed in Asiana crash probe

LOS ANGELES – Investigators probing the Asiana Airlines plane crash in San Francisco began interviewing cockpit crew of the Boeing 777 amid mounting indications that pilot error may have caused the fatal accident. Two teenage Chinese girls were killed and more than 180 people injured when the Asiana flight from Seoul clipped a seawall short of the runway and went skidding out of control on its belly, shredding the tail end of the plane and starting a fire.

Deborah Hersman, head of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), said the aircraft’s four-man flying crew were being quizzed as it emerged the plane had been flying well below the recommended speed for landing when it crashed at San Francisco International Airport on Saturday.

Flight data showed the plane had been travelling at approximately 106 knots at impact – sharply lower than the target speed necessary for landing.
Asiana confirmed that the pilot of the aircraft, 46-year-old Lee Kang-Kuk, was being trained on operating the Boeing 777. The trainer assigned to guide him, Lee Jung-Min, was on his first day of the job, Asiana later added.

The airline said pilot Lee had just 43 hours of experience in piloting the popular passenger aircraft, although he had accumulated more than 9 000 hours of flight time experience on other planes.

Lee Jung-Min, the trainer, had more than 3 000 hours of flight time on the Boeing 777, a spokesperson for the airline said.

Chinese media meanwhile identified the two dead passengers as Ye Mengyuan, aged 16, and Wang Linjia, aged 17, high school classmates from eastern China’s Zhejiang province.

One of the girls may have been run over by an airport fire engine rushing to the scene, San Francisco Fire Chief Joanne Hayes-White told reporters on Monday.

San Mateo County Coroner Robert Foucrault earlier told the San Francisco Chronicle that the other girl appeared to have died from injuries suffered as she was hurled out of the plane.

Asiana Flight 214, which originated in Shanghai and stopped in Seoul, had 291 passengers and 16 crew members aboard.

In total, 123 people on the flight escaped unharmed, US officials said.

South Korean passenger Kim Ji-Eun, who was seated a few rows ahead of dozens of Chinese passengers at the rear of the cabin, including the two girls, described the terrifying crash.

“I saw people whose seat belts were somehow unbuckled being thrown out everywhere,” Kim, aged 22, said.

Officials said about 20 people remained in critical condition in hospital.

According to aviation safety databases, the two dead teens are the Boeing 777’s first fatalities in 18 years of service.

It was the first deadly Asiana passenger plane crash since June 1993, when one of its Boeing 737s slammed into a mountain in South Korea, killing 68.—AFP