San Francisco's Last Commercial Jet Crash

Government and industry officials say the death toll could have been
much higher in the Asiana Airlines crash in San Francisco on Saturday.
In what's believed to be the last commercial jetliner crash landing in
San Francisco—nearly 45 years ago—the passengers were even luckier.

On the morning of Nov. 22, 1968, Japan Airlines Flight 2, carrying 96
passengers and 11 crew arriving from Tokyo, was descending through
thick fog toward Runway 28L at San Francisco International Airport—the
same runway that Asiana Flight 214 was aiming for on Saturday.

As Japan Airlines Captain Kohei Asoh lowered the Douglas DC-8 below
the overcast clouds, however, he couldn't see the runway lights,
according to the National Transportation Safety Board accident report
posted on aviation-safety website AirDisaster.com. His first officer
called out, "We are too low—pull up, pull up."

But it was too late. It turned out the plane was nowhere near where
the captain thought it was. It made a soft landing in San Francisco
Bay, about 2½ miles short of the runway.

"After touchdown in water," the report said, "the captain reported
that he felt that the landing gear was on the bottom of the Bay and he
was sure that the airplane would not sink."

No passengers or crew were injured, and they all made it to shore
safely on life rafts. As the Washington Post put it in a front-page
caption the next day: " 'Gee, that's a lousy landing,' one passenger
thought to himself. Miraculous might have been a better word."

In Saturday's fiery crash, the Asiana Boeing 777 came in far too
slowly, investigators say, slamming into the runway and breaking into
pieces. Two people were killed and 182 other passengers were injured,
at least eight of them critically. The conditions Saturday were far
better than in the previous crash, with excellent weather and
visibility—one reason that investigators are puzzled about why and how
it happened.

At a government hearing weeks after the Japan Airlines crash, Capt.
Asoh is often attributed as saying, "As you Americans say, I f— up."
Years later, several books and reports termed the frank acceptance of
blame as "the Asoh defense."