including one on FIRST training flight - desperately tried to abort landing
just 1.5 seconds before impact
The first images from inside the
stricken Asiana Airlines Flight 214 that crashed at San Francisco's
airport on Saturday were released today as it emerged the pilot was on
his maiden training flight and had only 43 hours experience at the
controls of a Boeing 777.
The chilling photographs - published by the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board - show
seats slammed out of their rivets and oxygen masks dangling from the
overhead compartments, giving some indication of the terror that the 307
passengers and crew experienced as the plane's botched landing killed
two and injured 181 people.
It
comes as the flight recorder or black box from the doomed aircraft
revealed that the craft was 'significantly below' its intended speed and
its crew tried to abort the landing less than two seconds before it hit
a seawall, severing the tail section of the plane and almost flipping
onto one side.
'He was training,' a spokeswoman for Asiana Airlines, Lee Hyomin, told Reuters of pilot Lee Kang-Kook.
'Even
a veteran gets training,' the airlines spokeswoman said. 'He has a lot
of experience and previously had flown to San Francisco on different
planes, including the B747 ... and was assisted by another pilot who has
more experience with the 777.'
Devastation: The interior of Asiana Airlines
Flight 214 that crashed at San Francisco International Airport in San
Francisco, California, is shown in this U.S. National Transportation
Safety Board (NTSB) handout photo released on July 7th, 2013
The Boeing 777 airplane lies burned near the
runway after it crash-landed at San Francisco International Airport July
6, 2013 in San Francisco, California
The stall warning
sounded four seconds before impact, and the crew tried to abort the
landing and initiate what's known as a 'go around' maneuver just 1.5
seconds before crashing, Hersman said.
'Air speed was significantly below the target airspeed,' said Hersman.
The
crash killed two teenage Chinese students and injured more than 180
people, at least two dozen of them seriously, local officials said.
Grief: The parents (bottom) of Wang Linjia, one
of the two girls killedin the crash, cry at a middle school in Quzhou,
Zhejiang province, after being told of their daughter's death.
Rescue: A woman is taken away from the airport's reflection room where passengers rested after their ordeal
Wreck: Investigators walk around the crash site
of Asiana Flight 214 at the San Francisco International Arport in San
Francisco, on Sunday, July 7th, 2013. investigators are trying to
determine what caused the crash of Flight 214 on Saturday
Interior damage to the plane also was extreme, Hersman said on CNN earlier on Sunday.
'You
can see the devastation from the outside of the aircraft, the
burn-through, the damage to the external fuselage,' she said. 'But what
you can't see is the damage internally. That is really striking.'
The NTSB released photos showing the wrecked interior cabin oxygen masks dangling from the ceiling.
Six
people remained in critical condition at San Francisco General Hospital
on Sunday, including one girl, a hospital spokeswoman said, and 13
others were in less serious condition.
At least five people were still being treated at other area hospitals on Sunday morning.
Some
of the injured at San Francisco General suffered spinal fractures,
including paralysis, and others sustained head trauma and abdominal
injuries, according to Margaret Knudson, chief of surgery at the
hospital.
At least two
patients also suffered 'severe road rash suggesting they were dragged,'
Knudson said. The injured patients who were able to talk said they
According to Hersman, the landing appeared to be routine until the controller noticed the plane hit the sea wall. There were no prior calls for help before
'The speed was significantly below 174 knots, we’re not talking about a few knots,' she said.
A
preliminary investigation of the aircraft's recordings showed the
flight was cleared for visual approach, which was confirmed by the crew.
Preparations were then made for the approach and the landing gear went
down. The target speed was given as 137 knots, but no anomalies or
concerns were raised.
Aftermath: The wreckage of Asiana Airlines
flight 214 rests on runway 28L after it crash landed at San Francisco
International Airport on July 7th, 2013
FBI Special Agent in Charge David Johnson said on Saturday that 'at this point in time, there is no indication of terrorism.'
Seven
seconds before the impact, a member of the crew called for speed to be
increased, a stick shift was heard taking place before a call for a
'go-around' was heard 1.5 seconds before the impact.
The call for a 'go-around' is used when a crew wants to abort a landing and try again.
Readings
from the plane showed that the throttles were idle and air speed was
slowed below the target airspeed. A few seconds before the impact the
throttles were advanced a few seconds and the engines appeared to
respond normally.
The plane
was coming in from Seoul when witnesses said its tail appeared to hit
the approach area of a runway that juts into San Francisco Bay.
The
impact knocked off the plane's tail and the aircraft appeared to bounce
violently, scattering a trail of debris and spinning before coming to
rest on the tarmac.
Benjamin Levy, a 39-year-old venture
capitalist from San Francisco who sat in a window seat near one of the
wings, said the flight crew gave 'no indication whatsoever' that there
was any problem with the landing moments before the aircraft struck the
runway.
Following the
initial collision, 'we're going back up and I'm thinking maybe we're
taking off again. We didn't and we went back pretty hard and bounced,'
he told reporters after being released from San Francisco General.
'It's like a Six Flags show,' he said, referring to a theme park. 'We were skipping on the runway.'
Wreckage: The ceiling of the plane was destroyed by fire, which forced passengers to leave from emergency exits on one side only
No comments:
Post a Comment