SAN FRANCISCO–Federal authorities are looking into whether an Asiana Airlines jetliner clipped a sea wall before crashing at San Francisco International Airport Sunday, killing one person and injuring dozens, sources said.
Mechanical difficulties have not been ruled out, but investigators are focused on whether Asiana flight 214 from Seoul, South Korea, came in too low, according to sources familiar with the investigation who spoke on condition of anonymity. The plane appear to hit the seawall dividing the airport runway from San Francisco Bay, possibly causing the tail to come apart.
Multiple sources said there was no reported trouble or declared emergency on the plane that was carrying nearly 300 people until the flight crash landed.
Witnesses described the plane coming in very low, and pictures and video from the accident appear to show that the debris field began at the sea wall and stretched for hundreds of feet.
Asked at a news conference if pilot error was a factor, Deborah Hersman, chairwoman of the National Transportation Safety Board, said “everything’s on table at this point. We have to gather all the facts before we reach any conclusions.”
Hersman said that federal investigators are deploying now to probe the reasons behind the crash. She said officials from South Korea will also be invited to participate in the investigation.
Thousands of passengers were stranded at San Francisco International Airport after the crash just before 11:30 a.m. Many stunned travelers watched the dramatic landing of the Boeing 777 from the huge plate glass windows inside the terminal.
For hours after the crash, emergency vehicles with flashing lights swarmed around the plane, and other official vehicles went back and forth along the runway. Several police boats raced through the water nearby the runway where a huge jet, apparently stranded because of the investigation, waited on the runway.
At 1 p.m., about an hour and half after the crash, a half dozen tour buses and passenger buses headed out toward the downed plane — possibly to ferry passengers from the scene or from the nearby plane on the runway. The weather was clear and sunny at SFO mid-morning, with no fog visible on approach to the airport.
Gate agents and airport personnel had little information to offer passengers about how long they might be stranded. There were long lines at each gate as agents tried to rebook passengers on Sunday and Monday flights. Some passengers gave up in frustration and simply left the airport. One official at United announced over a loudspeaker that there would be a ground stop indefinitely at SFO for all flights coming in and out of the airport. A Southwest agent told another passenger that flights were canceled for the rest of the day.
In the early hours after the crash, SFO officials had little information to offer. During the first briefing at 2pm, SFO spokesman Doug Yakel would only confirm the basic details of the incident. He would not confirm the number of passengers on board or the number injured.
“We do not have any numbers in terms of passengers,” Yakel said. He said he had “no information on the status of the passengers.”
Yakel said flights were being diverted to a number of different airports: “My best advice is for passengers traveling today through SFO to check with their airline on the status of their flight.”
The last major incident at San Francisco International Airport happened in 2008, when a United Airlines Boeing 757 jet without any passengers was backing out of a gate and collided with a SkyWestplane carrying 60 passengers and crew, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. No passengers were injured.
The last major crash to occur in the United States was in 2009 when Continental Connection Flight 3407 which crashed about six miles short of Buffalo Niagara International Airport. All 48 people on board were killed.
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