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The flying pilot of Asiana Airlines Flight 214 told National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) officials that he was "blinded" temporarily by a flash of light at 500 feet, or 34 seconds before impact -- about the same time the pilots realized they were flying too low and going too slow. The NTSB doesn't know what caused the flash, and is continuing to investigate. At Wednesday's NTSB briefing, NTSB Chairwoman Deborah Hersman released information from the board's investigation. She detailed who was on the crew, the communications between air traffic control and the Asiana pilots, and the plane's evacuation. Evacuation delayed...

After I retired from UAL as a Standards Captain on the -400, I got a job as a simulator instructor working for Alteon (a Boeing subsidiary) at Asiana. When I first got there, I was shocked and surprised by the lack of basic piloting skills shown by most of the pilots. It is not a normal situation with normal progression from new hire, right seat, left seat taking a decade or two. One big difference is that ex-Military pilots are given super-seniority and progress to the left seat much faster. Compared to the US, they also upgrade fairly rapidly because...

U.S. authorities couldn’t perform drug or alcohol tests on the four pilots who were aboard Asiana Flight 214 when it crashed at San Francisco International Airport — a lapse that will complicate efforts to figure out why they were seemingly unaware that the plane was coming in too slowly and too low. Those were the latest revelations Tuesday from National Transportation Safety Board Chairwoman Debbie Hersman, who said her agency and the Federal Aviation Administration couldn’t legally requirethe crew of the South Korea-based airline to submit to testing after the crash. That decision is left to the airline’s home country....

The Asiana Airlines’ Boeing 777, which crash-landed in San Francisco Saturday claiming two lives and injuring over a hundred, was flown by one of the best qualified and most experienced pilots at Korea’s No. 2 carrier. A source familiar with the issue said Sunday that the 49-year-old, Lee Jeong-min, had more than 25 years experience flying both military fighters and large-sized commercial aircraft. “In the Air Force, Lee was selected to fly the F-4 because he was one of the best fighter pilots with the F-5 which all Korean fighter pilots start with. After serving in the military for 10...

I used the data for Asiana Flight 214 from FlightAware to create a series of graphs to help Freepers understand how the approach to landing deviated from the expected behavior. This data is collected from the FAA computer systems. The location data is either calculated by the FAA radar or reported by the aircraft transponder. The altitude is reported by the aircraft transponder. The ground speed and vertical descent rate is most likely reported by the aircraft's Mode S transponder, but it's possible these were computed by the radar system. This first graph is a plot of the latitude/longitude in...

A Boeing 777 passenger jetliner bound from Seoul, South Korea, crashed and caught fire while landing at San Francisco International Airport at about 11:30 Saturday. The plane, Asiana Flight 214, came to rest on the side of the runway. The airport remains closed to all traffic and emergency teams are on the scene.

The evacuation of Asiana flight 214 began badly. Even before the mangled jetliner began filling with smoke, two evacuation slides on the doors inflated inside the cabin instead of outside, pinning two flight attendants to the floor. Cabin manager Lee Yoon-hye, apparently the last person to leave the burning plane, said crew members deflated the slides with axes to rescue their colleagues, one of whom seemed to be choking beneath the weight of a slide. It was just one of the moments of drama described Sunday by Lee of a remarkable evacuation that saved 305 of the 307 people on...

Asiana Airlines said Monday that the pilot in control of the Boeing 777 that crashed in San Francisco Saturday had little experience flying that type of plane and was landing one for the first time at that airport. Asiana spokeswoman Lee Hyomin told the Associated Press Monday that Lee Gang-guk was trying to get used to the 777 during Saturday's crash landing. She says the pilot had nearly 10,000 hours flying other planes, including the Boeing 747, but had only 43 hours on the 777. Hyomin told Reuters that co-pilot Lee Jeong-min has 3,220 hours of flying experience with the...

A San Francisco-area coroner whose office received the bodies of two teenage victims of the Asiana plane crash says officials are conducting an autopsy to determine if one of the girls was run over and killed by a rescue vehicle. San Mateo County Coroner Robert Foucrault says Sunday that senior San Francisco Fire Department officials notified him and his staff at the crash site on Saturday that one of the 16-year-olds may have been struck on the runaway. Foucrault says an autopsy he expects to be completed by Monday will involve determining whether the girl's death was caused by injuries...

Sarah Barracuda posted this link to another thread. Asked that someone post a thread

"...Investigators also said they were looking into the possibility that rescue crews ran over one of the two teenagers killed in the crash on Saturday. Officials released the details without explaining why the pilots were flying so slow - or why rescue officials didn't see the girl..."

The Asiana Airlines Boeing 777 that crashed at San Francisco's airport on Saturday was traveling "significantly below" its intended speed and its crew tried to abort the landing just seconds before it hit the seawall in front of the runway, the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board said on Sunday. Information collected from the plane's cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder indicated that there were no signs of trouble until seven seconds before impact, when the crew tried to accelerate, NTSB Chairwoman Deborah Hersman said at a news conference at the airport. A stall warning sounded four seconds before impact,...

Asiana Airlines Inc said the pilot in charge of landing the Boeing 777 that crash-landed at San Francisco's airport on Saturday was training for the long-range plane and that it was his first flight to the airport with the jet. "It was Lee Kang-kook's maiden flight to the airport with the jet... He was in training. Even a veteran gets training (for a new jet)," a spokeswoman for Asiana Airlines said on Monday. "He has a lot of experience and previously flown to San Francisco on different planes including the B747... and he was assisted by another pilot who has...

A photo shared on Twitter by one of the passengers [Twitter / @Eunner ] An Asiana Airlines flight from Seoul, South Korea, has crashed while landing at San Francisco airport, US federal aviation officials have said.According to the Reuters news agency there were two fatalities in the crash, as well as an unknown number of injuries.Al Jazeera's Matt McFetridge, reporting from San Francisco, said that local radio was also reporting the fatalities."We've got reports of at least 16 passengers at two very good hospitals in San Francisco," our correspondent said."We have not heard official confirmation of the two fatalities."What...

Emergency crews surround an Asiana Airlines passenger jet after it crashed and burned at San Francisco International Airport, July 6, 2013, (CBS) Emergency crews surround an Asiana Airlines passenger jet after it crashed and burned at San Francisco International Airport, July 6, 2013, (CBS) Filed underLocal, News, Syndicated Local Related tagsCrash, San Francisco International Airport, SFO SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS/KPIX 5) — An Asiana Airlines Boeing 777 crashed and burned upon arrival at San Francisco International Airport on Saturday, killing two people and hospitalizing 181 others.The deadly crash happened around 11:30 a.m. Saturday on runway 28 behind Terminal 2 – the...

Terrible death of two Chinese schoolgirls, 16, whose bodies were found on runway after Boeing 777 crash at San Francisco airport The two victims who perished as an Asiana Airlines Boeing 777 crashed and burst into flames as it came to land at San Francisco International Airport on Saturday morning have been identified as Chinese schoolgirls who were on a class trip. The bodies of Ye Mengyuan and Wang Linjia, both 16, were found on the runway after the tail of the plane, which was flying from Seoul in South Korea with 307 people on board, was ripped off as...

A navigation system that helps pilots make safe descents was turned off at San Francisco airport on Saturday when a South Korean airliner crashed and burned after undershooting the runway ... The system, called Glide Path, is meant to help planes land in bad weather. It was clear and sunny, with light winds, when Asiana ... San Francisco International has turned off the system for nearly the entire summer on the runway where the Asiana flight crashed, according to a notice from the airport on the Federal Aviation Administration's Web site

(CNN) - An Asiana Airlines' Boeing 777 crashed and burned Saturday while landing at San Francisco International Airport, sending up a large plume of dark smoke from the aircraft, which lost its tail and much of its roof.

LiveATC.net has captured the final approach of Asiana Airlines Flight 214. Flight 214 from Seoul, South Korea was on a direct flight and was landing on to runway 28L when it crashed at 11.36am. [photo] San Francisco Fire Department officials are reported to have confirmed fatalities in the Asiana Airlines Boeing 777-200ER crash. Local news media KTVU has reported that two passengers were killed and 61 injured. [photo] Flightglobal.com reports that the 2006-registered aircraft HL7742 had accumulated 35,700h on 5,185 cycles at 31 March. The 777-200ER, one of 12 in the Asiana fleet, was powered by the Pratt & Whitney...