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Asiana Crash In San Francisco, 2 Die


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SAN FRANCISCO - At least two people were killed and 130 injured early Sunday (Thailand time) when an Asiana Airlines Boeing 777 clipped a seawall and crash-landed at San Francisco International Airport.

 

The plane, Boeing's largest twin-engine model, appears to have struck a seawall where the runway meets San Francisco Bay, said John Cox, a Washington-based aviation safety consultant who has participated in several National Transportation Safety Board investigations. That suggests that the jet was coming in short of the runway, Cox said in an interview.

 

"It's not a little bit short," Cox said. "It's a lot short."

 

Flight 214 had 291 passengers and 15 crew members, of whom 181 were taken to hospitals, San Francisco Assistant Deputy Fire Chief Dale Carnes told reporters today. One person was unaccounted for, Carnes said.

 

The passengers included 77 South Koreans, 141 Chinese, 61 from the U.S., and one Japanese person, according to a statement from Asiana.

 

Five crash victims were in critical condition at San Francisco General Hospital, a spokeswoman, Rachael Kagan, told reporters.

 

An FBI agent said there was no sign the crash was the result of a terror attack.

 

"At this point in time there is no indication of terrorism involved," said FBI special agent David Johnson.

 

Hayes-White said firefighters and emergency teams rushed to the scene after the plane experienced what was initially called a "hard landing."

 

According to witnesses, the plane appeared to clip a seawall short of the runway, snapping off the tail and leaving a trail of debris before the aircraft finally came to a stop.

 

"When we arrived on scene the chutes had already been deployed and we observed multiple numbers of people coming down the chutes and actually walking to their safety, which is a good thing," Hayes-White said.

 

The accident marked the third time a 777 was destroyed in an accident, according to AviationSafetyNetwork, an online log of aviation crashes. No one died in the two previous incidents.

 

A British Airways Plc 777 landed short of a runway at London's Heathrow Airport on Jan. 17, 2008, after its engines stopped, according to the U.K.'s Air Accidents Investigation Branch. The plane came to rest in a field.

 

An EgyptAir 777 was destroyed by fire on the ground at Cairo International Airport on July 29, 2011, according to AviationSafetyNetwork. The fire erupted in the cockpit as the crew was preparing to depart.

 

The San Francisco airport was initially closed to all incoming and outgoing flights after the crash, though two of four runways were later reopened.

 

More than 300 flights were canceled as crews worked to clean up the wreckage and begin an investigation. The tally consisted of 195 departures and 148 inbound flights, according to FlightAware.

 

 

http://www.bangkokpost.com/breakingnews/358735/asiana-crash-latest

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The news keeps saying the plane crash-landed. Well, it wasn't intended to be a crash landing. :p

 

 

<< Vedpal Singh, who was sitting in the middle of the aircraft and survived the crash with his family, said there was no forewarning from the pilot or any crew members before the plane touched down hard and he heard a loud sound.

 

"We knew something was horrible wrong," said Singh, who suffered a fractured collarbone and had his arm was in a sling.

 

"It's miraculous we survived," he said.

 

A visibly shaken Singh said the plane went silent before people tried to get out anyway they could. His 15-year-old son said luggage tumbled from the overhead bins The entire incident lasted about 10 seconds.

 

Another passenger, Benjamin Levy, 39, said it looked to him that the plane was flying too low and too close to the bay as it approached the runway. Levy, who was sitting in an emergency exit row, said he felt the pilot try to lift the jet up before it crashed, and thinks the maneuver might have saved some lives.

 

"Everybody was screaming. I was trying to usher them out," he recalled of the first seconds after the landing. "I said, `Stay calm, stop screaming, help each other out, don't push.'"

 

Hayes-White said she did not know the ages or genders of the people who died, but said they were found on "the exterior" of the plane. She said the 307 passengers and crew members had been aboard had been accounted for following several hours of confusion during which authorities said they were unsure of the whereabouts of more than 60 people who, as it turned out, had been evacuated to a different area of the airport.

 

Based on witness accounts in the news and video of the wreckage, Mike Barr, a former military pilot and accident investigator who teaches aviation safety at the University of Southern California, said it appeared the plane approached the runway too low and something may have caught the runway lip - the seawall at the end of the runway. >>

 

 

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_SAN_FRANCISCO_AIRLINER_CRASH?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2013-07-06-15-14-51

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