The pilot of the South Korean airliner that crash-landed at San Francisco International Airport on Saturday had an experience of a mere 43 hours flying Boeing 777s and was still receiving training for operating this class of jets.
It was also the pilot’s maiden flight to San Francisco with this jet, according to new information amid mounting focus on “pilot error” as the likely cause for the crash in which 305 passengers and crew had a providential escape, but two Chinese teenage girls died and many are still in hospital with serious injuries.
“It was (pilot) lee Kang-kook’s maiden flight to the (SFO) airport with the (777) jet,” said an Asiana Airlines spokeswoman, but noted: “He is a veteran pilot with almost 10,000 hours on other aircrafts like the 747. He was in the process of getting a licence for the new 777.” He has flown Boeing 777 nine times before to other airports. He had flown other aircraft to San Francisco several times before, but it was the first time he flew the 777 to this major West Coast hub.
The US National Transportation Safety Board, which is investigating the crash, has found that the airliner was flying far too slowly while approaching the runway and that the pilot made a futile effort to abort the landing just seconds before the crash.
The speed was found to be significantly below the target air speed of 137 knots for the approach of the flight.
Analysing the data on the black boxes recovered from the jet, the NTSB said the plane’s control yoke shook in the pilot’s hand at approximately four seconds before the plane crashed. A “go around” to abort the landing was attempted less than two seconds before the plane hit the runway.
NTSB chairperson Deborah Hersman, however, said investigators were focusing both on the crew and the aircraft. “We’re certainly looking at the crew and how they operated, how they were trained, at their experience,” she told CNN, adding: “We’re also looking at the aircraft. We’re looking to see if the crew was using automation or was flying on autopilot, or they were hand-flying the airplane.”
Cautioning against jumping to conclusions, Hersman said the investigators would take a look at all the factors. Asked about the issue of pilot error, she said her organization would reserve judgement till it has all the facts.
“I would discourage anyone from drawing any conclusions at this point,” she said, adding that investigators are still working to corroborate the information on the recorders. “What we need to do is corroborate the information we have both on the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder.”
“We have a lot of work ahead of us. We have teams that will be looking at aircraft operations, at human performance, survival factors, and we’ll be looking at the aircraft. We’ll be looking at power plants, systems and structures. And so we really want to make sure we have a good understanding of the facts before we reach any conclusions,” she said.
Some reports suggested that one of the two Chinese girls who perished in the crash may have actually died after being run over on the tarmac by one of the vehicles of the first responders. There was no immediate word on the issue from the San Francisco Fire Department.
Another plane crash in Alaska kills 10
A day after the San Francisco crash, an air taxi crashed on Sunday at an airport in Alaska, killing all 10 people (nine passengers and one pilot). The victims were still to be identified. The de Havilland DHC3 Otter air taxi crashed at a small airport in Soldotna, about 120 km off Anchorage. The weather at the time of the crash was reported to be cloudy with a light wind. The National Transportation Safety Board said it would be investigating the crash.