Plane crash at San Francisco
At least two people have died when an Asiana Airlines Boeing 777 with more than 300 people on board crashed on landing at San Francisco International Airport after a flight from Seoul and burst into flames.
In addition to the two deaths in the crash at San Francisco International Airport, dozens of passengers were unaccounted for, said San Francisco Fire Chief Joanne Hayes-Whites.
''This is a work in progress,'' she said, adding the investigation has been turned over to the FBI and that terrorism has been ruled out. She said at least 48 people were initially transported from the scene to area hospitals.
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| CREDIT - REUTERS/Jed Jacobsohn |
The airline said the plane had carried 291 passengers and 16 crew members.
Rachael Kagan, a spokeswoman for San Francisco General Hospital, said 10 critically injured people had been taken there, including two children, six women and four men. She said most of them spoke only Korean.
Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Lynn Lunsford said the Boeing 777 crashed at San Francisco International Airport while landing. She said the sequence of events was still unclear, but it appeared the plane landed and then crashed.
Television footage showed the top of the fuselage was burned away and the entire tail was gone.
One engine appeared to have broken away. Pieces of the tail were strewn about the runway.
Emergency responders could be seen walking inside the burned-out wreckage.
Stephanie Turner saw the plane going down and the rescue slides deploy, but returned to her hotel room before seeing any passengers get off the jet, she told ABC News.
Turner said when she first saw the flight she noticed right away that the angle of its approach seemed strange.
''It didn't manage to straighten out before hitting the runway,'' she said. ''So the tail of the plane hit the runway, and it cartwheeled and spun and the tail broke off ... I mean we were sure that we had just seen a lot of people die. It was awful.
''And it looked like the plane had completely broken apart,'' she said.
''There were flames and smoke just billowing.''
Samsung executive David Eun, who was on board of the crashed plane, has tweeted a photo of people streaming out of the jet, with the aircraft's belly on the ground and its tail missing.
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| Photo - Twitter - David Eun |
Kate Belding was out jogging just before 11.30 am on a path the water from the airport when she noticed the plane approaching the runway in a way that ''just didn't look like it was coming in quite right.''
''Then all of a sudden I saw what looked like a cloud of dirt puffing up and then there was a big bang and it kind of looked like the plane maybe bounced (as it neared the ground),'' she said.
''I couldn't really tell what happened, but you saw the wings going up and (in) a weird angle.'' ''Not like it was cartwheeling,'' she said, but rather as though the wings were almost swaying from side to side.
Facebook CEO Sheryl Sandberg and her familiy as well as other staffers of the companywere scheduled to be on the flight but decided to change her flight last minute, she posted on the social media site.
"Taking a minute to be thankful and explain what happened. My family, colleagues Debbie Frost, Charlton Gholson and Kelly Hoffman and I were originally going to take the Asiana flight that just crash-landed. We switched to United so we could use miles for my family's tickets. Our flight was scheduled to come in at the same time, but we were early and landed about 20 minutes before the crash."
Numerous flights headed to San Francisco were diverted to other airports. A United Airlines flight bound for San Francisco was sent to Los Angeles airport, and passengers were told the San Francisco airport would be closed for at least three hours.
Asiana is a South Korean airline, second in size to national carrier Korean Air.
It has recently tried to expand its presence in the United States, and joined the oneWorld alliance, anchored by American Airlines and British Airways.
The 777-200 is a long-range plane from Boeing. The twin-engine aircraft is one of the world's most popular long-distance planes, often used for flights of 12 hours or more, from one continent to another.
The airline's website says its 777s can carry between 246 to 300 passengers.
The last time a large US airline lost a plane in a fatal crash was an American Airlines Airbus A300 taking off from JFK in 2001.
Smaller airlines have had crashes since then. The last fatal US crash was a Continental Express flight operated by Colgan Air, which crashed into a house near Buffalo, Nwe York on Feb. 12, 2009. The crash killed all 49 people on board and one man in a house.
''Then all of a sudden I saw what looked like a cloud of dirt puffing up and then there was a big bang and it kind of looked like the plane maybe bounced (as it neared the ground),'' she said.
''I couldn't really tell what happened, but you saw the wings going up and (in) a weird angle.'' ''Not like it was cartwheeling,'' she said, but rather as though the wings were almost swaying from side to side.
Facebook CEO Sheryl Sandberg and her familiy as well as other staffers of the companywere scheduled to be on the flight but decided to change her flight last minute, she posted on the social media site.
"Taking a minute to be thankful and explain what happened. My family, colleagues Debbie Frost, Charlton Gholson and Kelly Hoffman and I were originally going to take the Asiana flight that just crash-landed. We switched to United so we could use miles for my family's tickets. Our flight was scheduled to come in at the same time, but we were early and landed about 20 minutes before the crash."
Numerous flights headed to San Francisco were diverted to other airports. A United Airlines flight bound for San Francisco was sent to Los Angeles airport, and passengers were told the San Francisco airport would be closed for at least three hours.
Asiana is a South Korean airline, second in size to national carrier Korean Air.
It has recently tried to expand its presence in the United States, and joined the oneWorld alliance, anchored by American Airlines and British Airways.
The 777-200 is a long-range plane from Boeing. The twin-engine aircraft is one of the world's most popular long-distance planes, often used for flights of 12 hours or more, from one continent to another.
The airline's website says its 777s can carry between 246 to 300 passengers.
The last time a large US airline lost a plane in a fatal crash was an American Airlines Airbus A300 taking off from JFK in 2001.
Smaller airlines have had crashes since then. The last fatal US crash was a Continental Express flight operated by Colgan Air, which crashed into a house near Buffalo, Nwe York on Feb. 12, 2009. The crash killed all 49 people on board and one man in a house.
Audio of emergency services responding to the scene - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5v6PWl9HAI
-AP, Reuters