San Francisco Plane Crash: 6 Things We Learned About The Victims, The Flight And Asiana Airlines Overnight
Saturday, as news trickled in about the crash of Asiana Airlines Flight 214, there were not many details available about the incident, aside from surviving passenger's terrifying accounts. This morning, officials have released more information about the San Francisco International Airport crash.
There were 307 people on board the flight that originated in Shanghai and made a stop in Seoul, South Korea, 16 of whom were in-flight crew. Of those, 123 were not injured, 181 were hospitalized or treated for injuries and two died at the scene. The passengers were citizens from different Asian countries and the United States. Sixty-one of the passengers were American, 77 were South Korean, 141 were Chinese and one was Japanese. "It was all over in 10 seconds," Vedpa Singh, who suffered a fractured collarbone, told USA Today. "We heard a big bang, and it was over."
Here are some new things that we found out about the crash overnight:
1. Two teens were killed in the crash. The two fatalities were 16-year-old students from China. The girls, Ye Meng Yuan and Wang Lin Jia, were part of a group of about 70 Chinese students and teachers traveling to San Francisco. The two were found deceased on the runway, apparently thrown from the plane.
2. Fifty-two people were taken to San Francisco General Hospital. According to the Associated Press, 181 people were transported to area hospitals. Forty-nine of the injured are listed in serious condition. Five at San Francisco General, including one child, are listed in critical condition. Several others were treated for non-life threatening injuries and released Saturday night. Passengers and witnesses alike were shocked that so many walked away from the crash with only minor injuries.
"We knew something was horribl[y] wrong," said Singh. "It's miraculous we survived."
3. The president of Asiana Airlines apologized for the crash, said the company will take time to determine the cause. "I am bowing my head and extending my deep apology," airline President Yoon Young-doo bowed and said during a news conference in Seoul.
4. The National Transportation Safety Board is analyzing data from black box recordings. NTSB Chairman Deborah Hersman told Fox News that the agency has recovered the black box recordings from the plane's cockpit.
"The cockpit data recording gives a sense of the conversations, the workload and what was going on between pilots not just in the moments of the crash but in the minutes and hours before," Hersman said. "If the data's good, it will help guide our investigation."
5. Four pilots were on the plane. The flight lasted approximately 11 hours, with four pilots rotating shifts throughout. The two flying the plane at the time of crash were Lee Jeong-min and Lee Gang-guk. Asiana's president described the pilots as "skilled." He said that three of the four had logged more than 10,000 hours each of flight time. The other had logged about 5,000 hours, which is still impressive. All four of the pilots were from South Korea.
6. Facebook's Sheryl Sandberg was supposed to be on that flight. But, she and her colleagues changed their flight last minute. "Taking a minute to be thankful and explain what happened," Sandberg wrote in a Facebook post. "My family, colleagues Debbie Frost, Charlton Gholson and Kelly Hoffman and I were originally going to take the Asiana flight that just crash-landed."