SAN FRANCISCO (RNN) ? An intense investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board began late Saturday as the next phase to discover why Asiana Airlines Flight 214 crash landed at San Francisco International Airport on Saturday.?
San Francisco Mayor Edwin Lee confirmed that first responders have accounted for everyone on board Saturday's fatal crash of a Boeing 777, with two confirmed fatalities.
Citing Asiana Airlines's CEO Yoon Young-doo, CNN has identified the two Chinese girls who were killed as Wang Linjia and Ye Mengyuan, both 16 years old. The two girls were found outside the rear of the plane, according to San Francisco Fire Chief Joanne Hayes-White. The girls were traveling with a group of high school students.
"I bow my head and sincerely apologize for causing concern to the passengers, families and our people," Yoon said.
CNN also confirmed the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder - known as black boxes - from the plane had been recovered from the wreckage and were on their way to NTSB headquarters in Washington, DC, to be analyzed.
A total of 307 people - 291 passengers and 16 crew members - were aboard Asiana Airlines Flight 214 as it attempted to land after an approximately 10-hour flight from Seoul, South Korea.
Asiana Airlines confirmed 141 of the passengers were Chinese citizens, 77 Korean, 61 American, one Japanese and 11 others of unspecified nationalities. Among the survivors are 26 middle school students from China traveling to the U.S. for a summer camp trip, according to CNN.
The next press conference will be Sunday, and will be a joint effort involving San Francisco officials, high-ranking first responders, the FBI, the NTSB, Boeing and Asiana Airlines. The location and time has not been announced. Officials from South Korea's Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport will also be joining investigation efforts and are en route to San Francisco.
The flight originated in Shanghai, China, and stopped in Seoul, South Korea, before continuing to San Francisco.
The investigation into the crash will center on the condition and competency of the pilot, the flight data recorder inside the plane and the communications between the flight crew and the air traffic control tower to identify what went wrong.
The NTSB has already began interviewing the pilots of Asiana's plane, according to CNN late Saturday night. The NTSB also will be the first to delve into the pieces of wreckage along the runway of the jet.
The cause of the crash is unknown as of early Sunday, but according to the Associated Press, one aviation expert suggested that the plane approached the runway too low, and part of the plane caught the end of the runway's seawall. Yoon did confirm at a press conference that it was not engine failure that caused the crash, according to CNN.
Nine different San Francisco Bay-area hospitals are currently treating patients from the crash. The hospitals saw 182 passengers for injuries varying from bruises, broken bones and spinal cord injuries.?
"Currently our grand total of patients from this Asiana airlines accident is 52," said Rachel Kagan, Chief PIO, San Francisco General Hospital late Saturday. "This last wave or most recent wave of patients has been in much better shape than the previous three waves. Most of them can walk in on their own. They can talk. They are conscious."
CNN reported early Sunday that at San Francisco General Hospital - the area's only level 1 trauma center - six passengers were in critical condition, including a child, and five were in serious condition. Only six people have left since early Sunday morning.
During a press conference in Washington, DC, National Transportation Safety Board Chairwoman Debbie Hersman said three investigators based in Los Angeles are deploying to the scene to start the investigation. An additional team from Washington, DC, will be arriving some time late Saturday or early Sunday.
"We have a lot of work to do. When our teams arrive on scene, we're going to be looking for the cockpit recorder and see if it was working at the time of the crash," Hersman said. "We haven't determined what the focus of this investigation will be. We have to gather the facts before we can make any conclusions. NTSB investigations are very thorough."
According to the Associated Press, the plane, a Boeing 777, has a nearly sterling record, with the Asiana Airlines plane being just the second major accident in the 18-year history of the model. The Boeing 777 was introduced into service in 1995.
The first accident was British Airways Flight 28 from China as London's Heathrow Airport on Jan. 17, 2008. There were no fatalities, but 47 passengers were injured. Investigations later discovered that fuel was blocked from the planes' engines because of high altitudes, creating ice pellets in the fuel that clogged the fuel-oil heat exchange, according to the Associated Press.
"The 777 has a fantastic record," retired NTSB investigator Tom Haueter told the Associated Press.
The last fatal commercial airplane crash in the U.S. was Feb. 12, 2009, when a Continental Express flight crashed into a home in Buffalo, NY, killing all 49 people on board and one person inside the home.
According to CNN, Asiana Airlines has only had two other fatal accidents in the last 20 years: in 2011, a cargo plane crashed into the East China Sea, killing the only two on board. In 1993, a Boeing 737 crashed near South Korea's Mokpo Airport because of bad weather, killing 68 of 116 people aboard the plane.
Lee placed his emphasis on comforting the victims.
"We're deeply saddened by this incident and our thoughts and prayers are with our friends and those affected," Lee said.
Lee also expressed his sympathy to South Korea, where the plane's operator, Asiana Airlines, is based.
All air traffic out of San Francisco International Airport was canceled for about three hours, and arriving aircraft were diverted to different airports in the region.
The FBI said there were no indications of terrorism or criminal activity associated with the crash.
Boeing tweeted a statement that said, "Our thoughts are with everyone affected by today's incident at SFO. We stand ready to assist the NTSB."
Asiana Airlines released a statement later Saturday from its Seoul, South Korea headquarters, saying, "Asiana Airlines is currently investigating the specific cause of the incident as well as any injuries that may have been sustained to passengers as a result. Asiana Airlines will continue to cooperate fully with the investigation of all associated government agencies and to facilitate this cooperation has established an emergency response center at its headquarters."
Video of the aftermath of the crash shows smoke rising from the plane and passengers leaving the wreckage using the inflatable slides attached to the plane's side doors.
Flight passenger Ben Levy recounted how the plane felt before it crashed as he left the hospital.
"It sounded like we were about to land. The nose of the plane, you know it goes up a little bit, full throttles, start hitting hard," Levy said. "We felt like we were going up again. I felt like he was going to pull one of those almost missed landings and go back up. Didn't happen we just crushed back. If we flipped, none of us would be here to talk about it."
David Eun posted a photograph on Twitter shortly after the crash showing passengers leaving the wreck. Eun, who is an executive at Samsung, said he was on board the plane during the crash.
Shortly after posting the picture, Eun tweeted, "Fire and rescue people all over the place. They're evacuating the injured. I haven't felt this way since 9/11." He also said that most of the passengers appeared to be OK.
One witness told CNN the plane spun sideways once it hit the ground.
"Nose wheel never hit the ground. There was no fireball after the initial one," Anthony Castorani, a witness at the airport, said. "There was a white plume of smoke, then after they doused it for about 20 minutes, there was some lighter smoke."
There were no first responders on the runway as the plane landed, and other planes were lined up ready for takeoff.
The weather was clear at the time of the crash, and local station KTVU reported there was little to no wind.
Copyright 2013 Raycom News Network. All rights reserved.
Source: http://www.wave3.com/story/22775395/2-chinese-teens-confirmed-dead-in-san-francisco-plane-crash
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