San Francisco pilots tried to abort landing before plane crash
Local fire department says one of the teenage girls killed in incident may have been run over by emergency vehicle
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The Asiana Airlines Flight Boeing 777 plane that crashed at San Francisco International airport on Saturday. Photograph: Reuters
The Asiana Airlines Boeing 777 that crashed at San Francisco's airport on Saturday was travelling "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 US 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, and the crew tried to abort the landing and initiate what's known as a "go around" manoeuvre just 1.5 seconds before crashing, Hersman said.
"Air speed was significantly below the target airspeed," she said. The throttle was set at idle as the plane approached the airport and the "engines appear to respond normally" when the crew tried to gain speed in the seconds before the crash, Hersman said.
Hersman disclosed the aircraft was travelling well below the target landing speed of 137 knots an hour, or 157mph. "We're not talking about a few knots," she said.
Asiana Airlines said the pilot was in training for the long-range plane and 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 said in Seoul on Monday.
MAS NAS SOCIOLOGIAS, PSICOLOGIAS E NA ADVOCACIA NINGUÉM NOS BATE.SÓ QUE ELES SÓ SABEM DIVIDIR FICANDO COM A MELHOR PARTE CLARO...
