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July 8, 2013

Preliminary Findings Point to Pilot Error in San Francisco Crash 
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Federal aviation officials say the plane that crashed at San Francisco
International Airport on Saturday was flying too slow to make a landing.
Two people were killed and scores were injured when an Asiana Airlines
jet from Seoul hit a seal wall and then skidded for hundreds of feet
before catching fire. Eight of the wounded are in critical condition.
The chair of the National Transportation Safety Board, Deborah Hersman,
said the pilot made a failed attempt to abort the landing after coming
in at too slow a speed.

Deborah Hersman: "I will tell you that the speed was significantly below
137 knots and we're not talking about a few knots. We still have to
corroborate some information, as I mentioned, this was a preliminary
read of the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder, the 137
knots came from the crew conversation about their approach speed. We
need to take a closer look on the raw data on the flight data recorder,
as well as corroborate that with radar and air traffic information, to
make sure that we have a very precise speed, but again we are not
talking about a few knots here or there we are talking about a
significant amount of speed below 137."

Asiana Airlines says it has ruled out mechanical failure and is focusing
on the pilot, who reportedly had little experience flying the Boeing 777
involved. Meanwhile on Sunday, 10 people were killed when a floatplane
crashed at an airport in Alaska. No survivors were found.

 

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