Asiana Airlines Flight 214

transpacific flight that crashed on July 6, 2013

Asiana Airlines Flight 214 was a passenger flight from Incheon International Airport, South Korea, to San Francisco International Airport, United States. On July 6, 2013, the aircraft crash-landed at San Francisco International Airport. There were 307 people (291 passengers and 16 crew) aboard the plane. Two passengers were killed and 182 were hurt. A third passenger also died, but it is possible that she survived the crash and was run over by a fire truck.[1] When the plane was coming in to land, the engines were idle and the plane was flying much slower than it should have been. 1.5 seconds before the plane crashed, the pilots tried a go-around, but they were too late.

Asiana Airlines Flight 214
The wreckage of the Boeing 777 at San Francisco International Airport the day after the crash
Accident
DateJuly 6, 2013 (2013-07-06)
SummaryControlled flight into terrain due to pilot error and pilot fatigue and stalled on approach.
SiteSan Francisco International Airport, California, United States
37°36′48″N 122°21′52″W / 37.61333°N 122.36444°W / 37.61333; -122.36444
Aircraft
Aircraft typeBoeing 777-200LR
OperatorAsiana Airlines
IATA flight No.OZ214
ICAO flight No.AAR214
Call signAsiana 214
RegistrationHL7742
Flight originIncheon International Airport, Jung District, Incheon, South Korea
DestinationSan Francisco International Airport, San Mateo County, California, U.S.
Occupants307
Passengers291
Crew16
Fatalities3 (initially 2)
Injuries187
Survivors304

The aircraft which crashed was a Boeing 777-200LR, and it had been used by Asiana Airlines since March 2006.[2] The crash was the first time anyone ever died aboard a Boeing 777.[3][4]

Aircraft

change

The aircraft used on Flight 214 was a Boeing 777-28EER. The plane's registration number was HL7742,[5] and it had Pratt & Whitney PW4090 engines.[6][7] The plane was delivered to Asiana Airlines in March 2006.[8][9] The aircraft had flown for about 36,000 hours.[6]

 
HL7742, the aircraft which crashed, in July 2011

On July 6, 2013, Flight 214 took off from Incheon International Airport (ICN) at 5:04 p.m. KST (08:04 UTC), which was 34 minutes late. It was supposed to land at San Francisco International Airport (SFO) at 11:04 a.m. PDT (18:04 UTC).[10]

On July 6, 2013, at 11:26 PDT (18:26 UTC), the aircraft crashed at San Francisco International Airport (SFO) when it was landing. It landed before the start of runway 28L, and it hit the seawall in San Francisco Bay.[11][12][13] The pilots wanted to approach the runway at 137 knots, but the flight data recorder showed that the speed was below this, and that the engines were idle during the approach. When the plane crashed, both engines and the tail section were torn off the plane.[14] People who saw the crash said there was a fireball when the aircraft crashed. There was a second, big explosion minutes after the crash. Evacuation slides were used to get the passengers off the plane.[14][15] Even though the plane was damaged a lot, "many [...] were able to walk away on their own".[16]

The Instrument Landing System (ILS) on runway 28L had been out of order since June 11.[17] Therefore, the planes were landed by the pilot, without a lot of help from the autopilot; the clear weather made it easier to do this.[18] Chesley Sullenberger, the pilot who saved US Airways Flight 1549, said that investigators would think about whether the ILS being unavailable could have helped the crash happen.[19]

This was only the third fatal crash in Asiana's history.[20] It was also the first fatal airliner crash in the United States since the Colgan Air Flight 3407 crash in 2009.[21]

Passengers and crew

change
Nationality[22] Passengers Crew Total
  China 141 0 141
  South Korea 77 14 91
  United States of America 64 0 64
  India 3 0 3
  Canada 3 0 3
  Thailand 0 2 2
  France 1 0 1
  Japan 1 0 1
  Vietnam 1 0 1
Total 291 16 307
 
Seat map

Four pilots were on board the plane. The pilots flying when the plane crashed were Lee Jeong-min, 49, who has flown for 12,387 hours (3,220 with the 777) and Lee Kang-kook, 45, who has flown for 9,793 hours including 43 hours on 777, according to the South Korean transport ministry.[23] Lee Kang-kook being trained to fly the 777, and this was his first landing at San Francisco in the aircraft. However, he had landed at San Francisco before in a Boeing 747. Lee Kang-kook only had 43 hours of experience with the 777 before the crash.[24][25]

Chief of San Francisco Fire Department, Joanne Hayes-White, said that two people died. Both of them were Chinese and 16 years old.[26][27] Both of their bodies were found inside the plane, near the tail break[28] Only one person was missing.[29] Before this, it was thought that 60 people were missing.[30] Later, Hayes-White said that everyone had been found.[31]

Seventy students and teachers going to the United States for summer camp were among the Chinese passengers. Thirty of the students and teachers were from Shanxi, and the others were from Zhejiang.[21] Five of the teachers and 29 of the students were from Jiangshan High School in Zhejiang. They were traveling in one group.[32] 35 of the students were going to a West Valley Christian School summer camp.[33]

One teacher had small injuries, and the two passengers who died were supposed to be going to the West Valley camp.[21][33]

Testimony

change

Several passengers noticed how close the plane was to the Bay when it was coming in to land. This caused the water to jump up when the engines were powered up just before the crash.[21][34][35][36]

When the plane hit the ground, it was said that the oxygen masks dropped right away. After the aircraft stopped, some passengers said that there were sparks inside the cabin.

Just after the crash, the pilots told the flight crew not to evacuate the passengers. However, the pilots later told them to evacuate, and the crew did so quickly. The crew also helped several passengers who could not escape the plane alone. One of the pilots carried out a passenger with an injured leg.[37]

One flight attendant said that many of the Chinese passengers, at first, could not understand the instructions to evacuate because of a language barrier.[37]

During the evacuation, a fire began in the cabin, near the 10th row. One of the pilots put it out.[37]

Two of the escape slides shot into the cabin instead of outside of it. The first escape slide blocked one of the exits and almost suffocated a flight attendant. One of the pilots burst it with an axe from the cockpit. The second went towards the middle of the aircraft, where there was a fire. It trapped another flight attendant, but a pilot burst it with a knife.[37]

Some passengers who were sitting at the back of the plane got out through the hole left by the tail of the plane, which was torn off in the crash.[38]

Investigation

change

The National Transportation Safety Board has started an investigation. An NTSB team has been sent to San Francisco.[30] Asiana CEO Yoon Young-Doo said "Currently we understand that there were no engine or mechanical problems." It is thought that the plane was too low when it was coming in to land and hit the seawall.[14] The NTSB said that it looked like the pilots were flying too slowly while approaching the runway.[39] The sound of the stick shaker (when the yoke vibrates to warn pilots that the plane may stall) could be heard about 4 seconds before the crash on the cockpit voice recorder.[6] The crew tried a go-around 1.5 seconds before the plane hit the ground and the engines seemed to have worked fine.[40]

On July 7, 2013, NTSB investigators found the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder. They were moved to Washington, D.C. to be analysed.[41] The NTSB said that the pilots tried to stop the landing and go around 1.5 seconds before the crash.[40]

The coroner of San Mateo County, Robert Foucrault, is doing an autopsy on the people who died.[42] He and someone from the fire department have said that one of the girls who died might have survived the crash but might have been killed after being run over by a fire truck.[21][43][44][45]

After the crash

change
 
Smoke from the wreckage

This was the very first time that anyone died on a Boeing 777 aircraft.[46]

The airport was closed for about five hours after the crash.[11][14][15] Flights which were going to San Francisco were told to land somewhere else. Some of the other airports the planes landed at were Sacramento, Los Angeles and Seattle.[47] By 3:30 PDT (22:30 UTC), runways 01L/19R and 01R/19L were open again. However, the runway the accident happened on 28L and the one next to it (28R) stayed closed.[11] About 24 hours later, runway 10L/28R was opened again.[48]

Asiana is still flying from Seoul to San Francisco, but after the incident the flight number was changed to 212.

change

References

change
  1. SF Fire Probes Whether Truck Ran Over Asiana Crash Victim
  2. Hennigan, W.J. (July 6, 2013). "Boeing's 777 considered a safe passenger jet". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved July 8, 2013.
  3. Kim, Jack; Pomeroy, Robin (July 6, 2013). "Asiana plane carried 291 passengers, 16 crew: airline". Reuters. Archived from the original on July 11, 2013. Retrieved July 6, 2013.
  4. "Press Release for Incident Involving Asiana Flight OZ 214 - July 7, 2013" (Press release). Asiana Airlines. Retrieved July 6, 2013.
  5. "Asiana 777 (AAR214) crashes upon landing at SFO". FlightAware. July 6, 2013. Retrieved July 6, 2013.
  6. 6.0 6.1 6.2 NTSB press briefing on July 7, 2013 Retrieved July 7, 2013.
  7. Stagis, Julie. "Pratt & Whitney Engines Powered Asiana Airlines Plane". Hartford Courant. Archived from the original on July 8, 2013. Retrieved July 7, 2013.
  8. "HL7742 Asiana Airlines Boeing 777-28E(ER) - cn 29171 / ln 553". Planespotters.net. Archived from the original on July 9, 2013. Retrieved July 6, 2013.
  9. "Asiana Plane Crash Lands: 'No Engine Problems'". Sky News. Retrieved July 7, 2013.
  10. "HL-7742 ✈ 06-Jul-2013 ✈ RKSI / ICN - KSFO ✈ FlightAware". Retrieved July 8, 2013.
  11. 11.0 11.1 11.2 Hradecky, Simon (July 6, 2013). "Accident: Asiana B772 at San Francisco on Jul 6th 2013, touched down short of the runway, broke up and burst into flames". The Aviation Herald. Retrieved July 6, 2013.
  12. Arkin, Daniel (July 6, 2013). "Boeing 777 crashes while landing at San Francisco airport". NBC News. Retrieved July 6, 2013.
  13. Somaiya, Ravi (July 6, 2013). "Plane Crashes on Landing in San Francisco". The New York Times. Retrieved July 6, 2013.
  14. 14.0 14.1 14.2 14.3 "Boeing 777 plane crash-lands at San Francisco airport". BBC News. July 7, 2013. Retrieved July 7, 2013.
  15. 15.0 15.1 Botelho, Greg; Ahlers, Mike M. (July 6, 2013). "Airline's Boeing 777 crash lands at San Francisco International Airport". CNN. Retrieved July 6, 2013.
  16. Onishi, Norimitsu; Somaiya, Ravi (July 7, 2013). "Victims of Plane Crash are Identified as Two Chinese Students". The New York Times. Retrieved July 7, 2013.
  17. "KSFO San Francisco Intl". PilotWeb. Federal Aviation Administration. Archived from the original on July 7, 2013. Retrieved July 7, 2013. 06/005 SFO navigation instrument landing system Runway 28L glide path out of service with effect from or effective from 1306011400-1308222359
  18. "Weather at incident time (METAR)". Navlost.eu. Archived from the original on 2014-05-03. Retrieved July 7, 2013.
  19. Hulac, Kari, ed. (July 6, 2013). "Pilot "Sully" Sullenberger: SFO Runway Construction Intended to Prevent Crashes Such as Saturday's". Milbrae Patch. Retrieved July 7, 2013.
  20. "Asiana jet crash further tarnishes Korean carrier's safety record". Reuters. 7 July 2013. Archived from the original on 7 July 2013. Retrieved 7 July 2013.
  21. 21.0 21.1 21.2 21.3 21.4 "Two dead in Asiana plane crash are Chinese citizens, identified as teenage girls". South China Morning Post. Reuters. July 7, 2013. Retrieved July 7, 2013.
  22. "Victims of Plane Crash Are Identified as 2 Chinese Students". The New York Times. July 7, 2013.
  23. "Asiana Airlines crash: The pilots". ITV. July 7, 2013. Retrieved July 7, 2013.
  24. "NTSB: Pilots attempted to abort landing 1.5 seconds before impact". CNN. 7 July 2013. Retrieved 8 July 2013.
  25. "Asiana Says Pilot of Crashed Plane Was in Training". New York Times. July 7, 2013. Retrieved July 7, 2013.[permanent dead link]
  26. "Asiana Crisis Management System". Asiana Airlines. Archived from the original on 25 January 2014. Retrieved 7 July 2013.
  27. "Asiana Airlines Crash: At a glance". CNN. Retrieved 7 July 2013.
  28. Botelho, Greg (July 7, 2013). "2 die, 305 survive after airliner crashes, burns at San Francisco airport". CNN. Retrieved July 7, 2013.
  29. Collins, Terry (July 6, 2013). "Official: 1 Unaccounted For From S.F. Plane Crash". Associated Press. Retrieved July 6, 2013.
  30. 30.0 30.1 Welch, William; Swartz, Jon M.; Strauss, Gary (July 6, 2013). "2 confirmed dead in San Francisco Airport crash". USA Today. Retrieved July 6, 2013.
  31. "Two dead, dozens injured in Boeing 777 crash". Oakland, CA: KTVU-TV. July 6, 2013. Archived from the original on October 25, 2014. Retrieved July 7, 2013.
  32. Yang, Sunny (July 7, 2013), "Asiana crash deaths ID'd as 2 Chinese teens", USA Today, The Associated Press, retrieved July 7, 2013, A teacher told Chinese television that there were 34 people traveling in the Jiangshan Middle School group — five teachers and 29 students.
  33. 33.0 33.1 Hunt, Katie. "Girls killed in crash were headed for camp." CNN. July 7, 2013. Retrieved on July 8, 2013.
  34. "Terror on Jet: Seeing Water, Not Runway". New York Times. July 7, 2013. Retrieved July 8, 2013.
  35. William M. Welch, Chris Woodyard, Doug Stanglin, ed. (July 8, 2013). "NTSB: Jet was traveling below target speed before crash". USA Today. Retrieved July 8, 2013.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: editors list (link)
  36. "Pilot was flying a 777 into San Francisco for first time". CBS Interactive. July 8, 2013. Archived from the original on July 8, 2013. Retrieved July 8, 2013.
  37. 37.0 37.1 37.2 37.3 Victoria Kim (July 8, 2013). "Asiana flight attendant, last person off jet, describes ordeal". Retrieved July 8, 2013.
  38. Jason Dearen, Joan Lowy, ed. (July 7, 2013) [July 6, 2013]. "Officials probe why crashed SF jet flew too slow". Seattle Times. Retrieved July 8, 2013.
  39. Bowens, Dan (July 7, 2013). "NTSB: Asiana flight flew too slow before crash". MyFox New York. Retrieved 8 July 2013.
  40. 40.0 40.1 "Asiana Airlines Flight 214 tried to abort landing". CBS News. July 7, 2013. Archived from the original on July 8, 2013. Retrieved July 7, 2013.
  41. Julie Yoon, F. Brinley Bruton and Matthew DeLuca (July 7, 2013). "NTSB: Officials recover black boxes from San Francisco crash site". NBC News. Retrieved July 7, 2013.
  42. "CBS/AP/ July 7, 2013, 8:21 PM Coroner: Officials probing if rescuers ran over San Francisco plane crash victim". CBS News. Archived from the original on 8 July 2013. Retrieved 8 July 2013.
  43. Hurd, Cheryl; Dwyer, Diane (July 7, 2013). "Fire Truck May Have Run Over Asiana Plane Crash Victim". NBC Bay Area. Retrieved July 8, 2013.
  44. Girl who died after plane crash may have been struck by emergency vehicle
  45. San Francisco plane crash: Did rescue vehicle run over one of Chinese students from Boeing 777 wreck?
  46. Axelrod, Jim (July 6, 2013). "Chesley Sullenberger: San Francisco airport a challenging place to land". CBS News. Retrieved July 7, 2013.
  47. "Plane crash at San Francisco airport, 2 dead". CBS News. Associated Press. July 6, 2013. Archived from the original on November 19, 2013. Retrieved July 6, 2013.
  48. "Third of four runways reopens at SFO, officials say". The Los Angeles Times. 2013-07-07. Retrieved 2013-07-07. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |authors= ignored (help)

Other websites

change