July 6 (UPI) — Previously unreleased video of the 2013 crash of a Boeing 777 in San Francisco shows major mistakes made by the crew, an aviation analyst said.
Asiana Airlines Flight 214 from Seoul crashed as it arrived July 6, 2013 at San Francisco International Airport. Three of the 307 passengers and crew aboard died, and 187 were injured. Federal investigators determined that pilot error caused the plane to arrive too low at the airport runway.
A 47-minute video, taken from the airport control tower, surfaced online June 28 on YouTube’s “What You Haven’t Seen” channel. It shows the plane on its final approach, followed by the crash. Emergency slides then inflate and passengers evacuate the plane as smoke emerges from the plane.
Aviation analyst Mike McCarron told NBC News that the evacuation began 30 seconds too late, blaming the pilot for a poor decision.
“As soon as the plane came to a stop, those doors should have been popping open,” McCarron said. “People should have been getting out of the aircraft. That is unacceptable. The passengers got out safely because the way the aircraft was designed. That’s the good part. The bad thing is all the procedures have to be followed such as evacuation immediately.”
McCarron credited flight attendants for starting the evacuation and noted that the evacuation was quick once the emergency slides were made available.
In confirming the video’s authenticity to the San Francisco Chronicle, airport spokesman Jon Ballesteros said he was unaware how the video was uploaded to the Internet, adding that it was shared only with investigators and used as a safety training video.
“It illustrates the rapid response of airport firefighters and how quickly they knocked down the fire,” Ballesteros said.
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