Asiana Airlines is facing a new class-action lawsuit from 53 passengers who were on board the ill-fated plane that clipped a seawall on approach and crash-landed at San Francisco International Airport in July of 2013, killing three.
Both Reuters News Service and the Korea Herald reported the news.
More than 180 among the 300 passengers were injured, 72 of whom already have received compensatory damages stemming from a lawsuit filed in the U.S. This new legal action was filed in South Korea.
According to the Herald, Korean law firm Barun Law LLC filed the complaint on June 26 in the Seoul Central District Court. Any lawsuit against the airline had to be filed within two years of the incident, as per the laws agreed upon regarding airline liability at the 1999 Montreal Convention.
The complaint noted that "The pilots failed to manage their speed and altitude while approaching to the airport. The passengers were seriously wounded as the pilots didn't operate the autopilot flight director system and auto throttle properly."
The suit is seeking a total of $30.5 million in damages to passengers who said they suffered injuries.
Last year, the National Transportation Safety Board said that poor judgments by the pilots, and their failure to comprehend the automated landing system, were responsible for the crash of Asiana Airlines Flight 214.
"Automation has unquestionably made aviation safer and more efficient," Christopher A. Hart, the NTSB's acting chairman, said today. "But the more complex automation becomes, the more challenging it is to ensure that the pilots adequately understand it.
"In this instance, the flight crew over-relied on automated systems that they did not fully understand. As a result, they flew the aircraft too low and too slow and collided with the seawall at the end of the runway."
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