San Francisco on Saturday afternoon seems to have taken even the jet's
trained crew by surprise in the crucial, chaotic moments after it came
to rest just beyond the seawall at the end of the runway.
After the Boeing 777-200 that originated in Seoul, South Korea, hit
the seawall barrier at the end of the runway, snapping the tail right
off the aircraft, San Francisco resident and crash survivor Benjamin
Levy said the crew was simply "overwhelmed."
He said there was no verbal warning from the pilot or crew before the impact.
"I mean, the crew was not expecting it at all," Levy said. "So, I mean
the ones who were able were helping, the ones who were injured were
not. You know, we had to help each other out."
So far, 305 of the 307 passengers and crew survived the crash. At
least 181 people have been transported to area hospitals, 49 with
serious injuries.
San Francisco General said early Sunday morning that the hospital had
received 53 patients, including at least 26 children. Six of those
patients were reported in critical condition, including one child.
Hospital spokeswoman Rachael Kagan said 4 other adults and one child
who arrived in critical condition have since been upgraded to serious.
The ages of the children were not immediately given.
There were seemingly several mitigating factors making the crash less
deadly than possible, even with the crew overwhelmed. First was the
fact that the plane did not disintegrate when its tail hit the seawall
upon landing, despite coming in at an "odd angle," according to what
eyewitness Kate Belding told CBS affiliate KCBS in San Francisco.
Kelly Thompson, another eyewitness on the ground, told KCBS she heard
a "horrible thud," and then watched as "the airliner bounced and then
slid to a stop on the runway."
Anthony Castorani, who told CBS News he watched the crash from his
hotel room near the airport, said the plane performed a "side motion
diagonal cartwheel" after hitting the runway.
Survivor Levy said there was no fire immediately following the plane
going down, likely enabling people to escape. With a fire, there
probably would have been a lot more deaths
"There was a bit of chaos, but I think we managed to get everybody to
calm down pretty quickly, and really start getting out. Not pushing on
each other, not stepping on each other. So it felt like it went pretty
fast," Levy said.
San Francisco Fire Department Chief Joanne Hayes-White said the two
people who died were found on "the exterior" of the plane. San Mateo
County Coroner Robert Foucrault told the San Jose Mercury News that
one appeared to have been thrown from the rear of the plane when the
tail broke off, and the other was found near the wreckage. State
broadcaster China Central Television said the two victims were Ye
Mengyuan and Wang Linjia, students at Jiangshan Middle School in
eastern China.
The South Korean airline said in a statement that Ye and Wang were both 16.
"Having surveyed that area, we're lucky that there hasn't been a
greater loss," fire chief Hayes-White said.
Levy said only after most people were off the plan did he see "fire a
lot more, smoke coming out, explosions coming out."
Levy said he was accustomed to flying into San Francisco and as the
plane made its approach Saturday, he looked out the window and thought
the water below seemed to be much closer than usual.
"Maybe 10 feet above the water and we're not even on the runway -- I
don't see any runway, I just see water. So I'm realizing, we're way
too low, but i'm just like, eh, he's gonna make it, he knows what he's
doing," he told a gaggle of news reporters. "Well, that wasn't the
case, somehow we hit the tarmac."
He said he felt extremely lucky to have escaped with just bumps and bruises.
Although there has been no official word on the possible causes of the
crash, in a press briefing held Sunday in South Korea, Asiana Airlines
CEO and President Yoon Young-Doo pointed out that the pilots onboard
the flight were "veteran pilots" and said that the accident likely did
not occur as a result of pilot error. He also said that error on the
part of mechanics has "yet to be confirmed."
The National Transportation safety board has launched a full-scale
investigation. NTSB Chairman Deborah Hersman told Fox News
investigators have collected the cockpit voice recorder and the flight
data recorder and were able to send them out on a red eye back to D.C.
"We hope our team and lab will read them out today," Hersman said.
"The cockpit gives a sense of the conversation, the workload, what was
going on inside the cockpit between the pilot, not just in the moments
of the crash but in the minutes and hours before the crash."
Hersman added: "Of course our focus right now is on the perishable information."
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