Boeing 777 Crashes At San Francisco Airport

Asiana Flight 214 from Seoul crashed while landing at San Francisco Airport today. Early reports suggest the plane was unstable as it touched down, which led to the tail of the plane breaking off. There are no official casualty reports yet, but passengers were seen walking off the plane. Preliminary estimates say one or two dead and 75 being transported to area hospitals. (Others are reporting two dead and several dozen injured.) Eyewitness report: "You heard a pop and you immediately saw a large, brief fireball that came out from underneath the aircraft," Anthony Castorani said on CNN. "At that moment, you could see that that aircraft was again starting to lift and it began to cartwheel [Ed: he likely means spinning horizontally, like a top]. The wing broke off on the left hand side. You could see the tail immediately fly off of the aircraft. As the aircraft cartwheeled, it then landed down and the other wing had broken." The media has estimated about 290 people were on board the plane. The top of the cabin was aflame at one point, but it's not known yet whether that affected the passengers. "Federal sources told NBC News that there was no indication of terrorism." Some images from the news make it look like the plane may have tried to touch down too early, hitting the seawall just before the runway.

Comments

Wrong week . . .

[cashman73]

Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit smoking!

Re:Wrong week . . .

[binarylarry]

Looks like I picked the wrong day to stop sniffing glue!

Open airplanes

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the problem with non-free airplanes. If the blueprints had been free under a freedom preserving license I'm sure the problem that caused the hiccup had been found.

Re:Open airplanes

[evilviper]

Unfortunately, most airplane accidents and incidents are due to pilot error

Repeat after me: "human factors"

Almost any accident can be prevent by a prescient pilot always making PERFECT decisions.

Passing accidents off as pilot error in all but the most egregious cases, is massively disingenuous, and something airlines and manufacturers like to do to shield themselves from all liability that they deserve.

Airlines trained pilots to do something stupid? Pilot error.
Airlines failed to train pilots on the new systems? Pilot error.
Counter-intuitive controls resulted in a pilot throttling down instead of up, and crashing? Pilot error.
Stall warning systems were non-functional, and the pilot wasn't fastidiously checking sensors? Pilot error.
Airline was juggling pilot schedules around, making them work with little sleep? Pilot error.

Interesting Photos & Data on Twitter

[McGruber]

Some interesting photos and data have shown up on twitter today. First, here is (I think) the original source of that photo taken by a passenger: https://twitter.com/Eunner

Second, here is a photo, taken across a small bay, showing the plane crashing: https://twitter.com/stefanielaine/status/353591123958173696/photo/1

And, most interesting, a comparison of flightpath data (from flightaware.com) of yesterday's flight against today's flight: https://twitter.com/sbaker/status/353611787750494208/photo/1

While I am no expert, it looks like it hit the ground short of the runway, like the previous crash of a 777 (BA 34).

Re:Not geek news...

[hedwards]

The real news here is that this happened today and we're reading about it today. I would have expected to have to wait at least a fortnight for the initial report to show up here. Followed by a week of dupes.

Why always mention "terrorism?"

[Sir Holo]

TFA: ...there was no indication of terrorism..."

Why is this still included in any US media article about any aviation accident, or similar event, in the news?

As an ordinary citizen, the question of terrorism is not anywhere near the top of my list of questions regarding "how" or "why" an accident may have occurred. Not at all. Now, the question of "who screwed up? Maintenance, pilot, management, etc.?" is the kind of question that springs to mind.

Or, perhaps, maybe the problem is with me? Should I learn to be more afraid?

Re:"Crashes in"?

[osu-neko]

For anyone confused by this comment, the original title of this article (before an editor stepped in and fixed it) read "Boeing 777 Crashes In San Francisco". The current title (at the time I'm posting this comment), "Boeing 777 Crashes At San Francisco Airport", is a much better description of the event without taking the mind in some horrific directions before giving the important details.