韓亞航空客機舊金山失事 2名中國女生遇難
Officials now say they have accounted for all but one of the 307 people on board an Asiana Airlines flight from Seoul, South Korea, that crashed while landing at San Francisco International Airport on Saturday, killing at least two people. The crash left the runway littered with debris, and forced passengers to jump down the emergency inflatable slides to safety.
At least 181 people have been transported to area hospitals, 49 with serious injuries.
San Francisco General said they have received 34 patients, including 23 adults and 11 children. Five were reported in critical condition. Hospital spokeswoman Rachael Kagan said the adult patients range in age from 20 to their 40s. It was not immediately clear the ages of the children.
For several hours, officials were reporting 60 people unaccounted for from among passengers and crew aboard the flight. However, they now say all but one has been located. San Francisco Fire Chief Joanne Hayes-White said of the investigation, "This is a work in progress."
Asiana Airlines issued a statement that listed the number of passengers and their nationalities: 77 Korean citizens, 141 Chinese citizens, 61 U.S. citizens and 1 Japanese citizen.
The passengers from China included a teacher and 34 high school students.
A spokesperson for San Francisco General said most of the passengers taken to the hospital are Korean-speaking. We are working to get interpreters for them," she said, "but they are quite critically injured so there is not a lot of discussion with them at this time."
The National Transportation Safety Board said it was sending a team of investigators to San Francisco to probe the crash. NTSB spokeswoman Kelly Nantel said Saturday that NTSB Chairman Deborah Hersman would head the team.
The FBI said that, at this point in time, there is no indication of terrorism involved in the incident.
Meanwhile, President Obama is expressing his gratitude to the first responders at the scene of the airliner crash in San Francisco. The White House says in a statement that Obama has directed his team to stay in constant contact with federal, state and local partners as they investigate and respond to the accident.
The White House says the president's thoughts and prayers go out to the families of those affected by the crash.
Early reports indicate that Asiana Airlines Flight 214 made a hard landing, with the tail of the plane striking the runway and breaking off.
The resulting fire sent black smoke billowing into the air, visible for miles.
"The plane started coming in at an odd angle, there was a huge bang and you could see the cloud of huge black smoke," Kate Belding, who was jogging near the airport at the time of the crash, told CBS Station KPIX San Francisco.
"It was a horrible thud," said Kelly Thompson, who observed the crash a hotel parking lot at the airport. She said the plane bounced, then slid on the runway.
David Eun, a Samsung executive who was on board the plane, posted a photo online showing passengers leaving the wreckage.
I just crash landed at SFO. Tail ripped off. Most everyone seems fine. I'm ok. Surreal... (at @flySFO) [pic] --
— David Eun (@Eunner) July 6, 2013
Rescue vehicles were on the scene immediately afterwards, with fire trucks spraying a white fire retardant on the wreckage.
Spokesperson Lt. Cdr. Shawn Lansing told CBS News that the U.S. Coast Guard flew two people with burns from the triage center via helicopter to Stanford University Hospital. The severity of the burns is unknown.
The airport was closed for several hours, with flights diverted to Oakland, Sacramento, Los Angeles, San Jose and Seattle. At about 3:30 p.m. PT, the airport announced that two runways have reopened.
Arnold Barnett, an aviation expert at MIT, told KCBS it was possible the plane could have experienced a power shortage that caused the pilot to lose control. He said a similar incident occurred involving a Boeing 777 at London's Heathrow Airport in 2008.
British Airways Flight 28 landed hard about 1,000 feet short of the runway and slid onto the start of the runway. The impact broke the 777-200's landing gear. There were 47 injuries, but no fatalities.
An investigation revealed ice pellets that had formed in the fuel were clogging the fuel-oil heat exchanger, blocking fuel from reaching the plane's engines. The Rolls-Royce Trent 800 series engines that were used on the plane were then redesigned.
Bill Waldock, an expert on aviation accident investigation, said he was reminded of the Heathrow accident as he watched video of Saturday's crash. "Of course, there is no indication directly that's what happened here," he said. "That's what the investigation is going to have to find out."
The Asiana 777 "was right at the landing phase and for whatever reason the landing went wrong," said Waldock, director of the Embry-Riddle University accident investigation laboratory in Prescott, Ariz. "For whatever reason, they appeared to go low on approach and then the airplane pitched up suddenly to an extreme attitude, which could have been the pilots trying to keep it out of the ground."
Asiana is a South Korean airline, second in size to national carrier Korean Air. It has recently tried to expand its presence in the United States, and joined the Star Alliance, which is anchored in the U.S. by United Airlines.
The 777-200 is a long-range plane from Boeing. The twin-engine aircraft is one of the world's most popular long-distance planes, often used for flights of 12 hours or more, from one continent to another. The airline's website says its 777s can carry between 246 to 300 passengers.
The last time a large U.S. airline lost a plane in a fatal crash was an American Airlines Airbus A300 taking off from JFK in 2001.
Smaller airlines have had crashes since then. The last fatal U.S. crash was a Continental Express flight operated by Colgan Air, which crashed into a house near Buffalo, N.Y. on Feb. 12, 2009. The crash killed all 49 people on board and one man in a house.
Asia remains one of the fastest-growing regions for aviation in the world. Even with slowing economies in Japan and China, airlines there saw 3.7 percent more passengers than a year ago, according to the International Air Transport Association.
Finding enough experienced pilots to meet a growing number of flights is becoming a problem. A 2012 report by aircraft manufacturer Boeing said the industry would need 460,000 new commercial airline pilots in the next two decades -- with 185,000 of them needed in Asia alone.
"The Asia-Pacific region continues to present the largest projected growth in pilot demand," the report said.綜合外國媒體7月7日報道，一架從韓國首爾起飛的韓亞航空波音777客機6日在美國舊金山國際機場着陸時發生事故，造成至少2名中國女生死亡。乘客不得不從緊急充氣滑梯逃生，至少182人送醫，49人傷勢嚴重。
根據韓亞航空發佈的聲明，機上共載有307人，其中乘客包括77名韓國人、141名中國人、61名美國人和1名日本人。而中國籍乘客中有1名教師和34名高中生。
舊金山消防局局長喬安妮·海斯-懷特說，嚴重損毀的機艙外發現兩名死者。韓聯社稱，兩名死者持中國護照。
舊金山總醫院表示，該醫院已接收了52名傷員，包括11名兒童，其中5人情況危急。醫院發言人瑞秋•卡根說成年傷員的年紀從20歲至40多歲不等，目前還無法得知兒童傷員的確切歲數。“我們收治的絕大部分傷員都是講韓語，爲此，醫院配備了翻譯。不過由於傷員傷勢嚴重，所以現階段無法與他們進行更多交談。”
美國國家交通安全委員會派出調查小組前往舊金山國際機場調查此次事故。該委員會發言人凱利•南特爾6日表示，委員會主席黛博拉•赫斯曼將親自帶隊調查。美國聯邦調查局（FBI）認爲，現階段沒有任何線索顯示這是一起恐怖襲擊事件。
美國總統奧巴馬向第一時間趕赴現場的救援人員表示感謝。白宮稱，奧巴馬已下令其下屬團隊與聯邦、州和地方各級的調查和應對機構保持聯繫，“奧巴馬總統會時刻關注遇難者及傷者家屬，併爲他們祈禱”。
根據此前的報道，客機降落時出現異常，機尾與跑道碰撞斷落，飛機隨後起火。目擊者稱，現場火勢巨大，冒出的滾滾濃煙，在幾公里外清楚可見。
“飛機以一個奇怪的角度落地了，突然間我聽見一聲巨響，看見陣陣濃煙衝上天空。”事發時，凱特•貝爾汀正在舊金山國際機場附近跑步，她說當時的情景非常可怖。而凱利•湯普森則在距離機場不遠處的酒店停車場裏看見了事故的發生，他說，飛機猛然撞地，機身回彈，然後又前滑。
韓國三星公司高管戴維是此次墜機事故的倖存者之一，事發後他將一張機上乘客慌忙逃生的照片上傳至社交網站。“我剛剛在舊金山國際機場經歷了墜機事故，機尾掉落。所幸絕大多數人都看上去安然無事。我也安好。”
事故發生後，救援車輛迅速趕赴現場，消防車向正在熊熊燃燒的飛機殘骸上噴灑白色阻燃劑。舊金山消防部門發言人肖恩•蘭辛接受媒體採訪時表示，美國海岸警衛隊動用直升機運送了兩名燒傷的傷員至斯坦福大學醫院接受救治，目前還無法得知他們的傷勢如何。
暫時關閉數小時後，舊金山國際機場於當地時間6日下午3點半重新開放兩條跑道。美國麻省理工學院航空專家阿諾德•巴奈特認爲，這架波音777客機可能因動力不足致使飛行員失去對飛機的控制，2008年在倫敦希思羅機場就有一架波音777客機發生類似的事故，當時那架英國航空公司的航班在距離跑道不足1000英尺（約合305米）時重重落下，飛機起落架折斷，造成47人受傷，但無人遇難。
隨後的調查結果顯示，飛機燃料中凝結的冰珠阻塞油路，致使燃油無法流向飛機引擎。由此，波音777客機上Trent 800系列引擎被重新設計。
航空專家比爾•瓦爾多克說當他觀看6日事故視頻時，不禁想起了2008年發生在希思羅機場的事故。“當然，並沒有跡象直接表明兩起事故發生的原因相似。不過，這架韓亞航空公司的客機也是在着陸階段出事的，因爲某種未知的原因，飛機顯得過低，然後突然拉高至一個極端角度，我認爲這可能是飛行員在試圖將飛機離開地面避免事故發生，”瓦爾多克說。
韓亞航空是韓國第二大的航空公司，僅次於韓國國有航空公司大韓航空。近年來，韓亞航空一直在拓展其在美國市場的佔有率，並加入全球最大的航空聯盟星際聯盟。
波音777是一款由美國波音公司製造的遠程雙引擎廣體客機，經常應用於需要飛行12個小時或以上的長途旅程，其載客量爲246人至300人。
