PHOTO: Asiana Airlines Flight 214, a Boeing 777 much like the one pictured, crashed July 6, 2013. (Courtesy of Thinkstock)
Pilot error.
The National Transportation Safety Board said this afternoon 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 at San Francisco International Airport last July.
Three passengers were killed and more than 200 injured when the Boeing 777 came in too low and too slow, clipping a sea wall. Two of the passengers killed were not wearing their seat belts, the NTSB determined; the third, unfortunately, was struck and killed on the tarmac by emergency vehicles responding to the crash.
"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."
The NTSB released this animated re-enactment of the flight's final minutes, and provided actual surveillance video of the flight hitting the seawall.
The NTSB's reports vindicates Boeing, after Asiana Airlines had filed documents in March claiming that while the pilots failed to maintain enough speed and altitude, the automatic throttles were compromised and not functioning properly. Boeing filed its own documents with federal accident investigators saying the crash was due to pilot error and pilot error alone. The NTSB, in a preliminary investigation, found that the throttles were working properly.
The pilot, Lee Kang Kuk, is an experienced pilot with more than 9,600 hours logged - although only 43 hours on the Boeing 777. Co-pilot Lee Jung Min has flown for more than 12,000 miles, including 3,208 hours on a 777.
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