Asiana Airlines is considering legal action against both US TV channel KTVU-TV and the US crash investigator over a TV report that named four “bogus” pilots related to the crash of its 777 on Saturday July 6th.
The Oakland-based TV station apologized after it read out the bogus names, which phonetically spelled out phrases such as “Something Wrong” and “We Too Low.”
The National Transport Safety Board has also apologized saying: “The National Transportation Safety Board apologizes for inaccurate and offensive names that were mistakenly confirmed as those of the pilots of Asiana flight 214, which crashed at San Francisco International Airport on July 6. Earlier today, in response to an inquiry from a media outlet, a summer intern acted outside the scope of his authority when he erroneously confirmed the names of the flight crew on the aircraft. The NTSB does not release or confirm the names of crewmembers or people involved in transportation accidents to the media. We work hard to ensure that only appropriate factual information regarding an investigation is released and deeply regret today’s incident. Appropriate actions will be taken to ensure that such a serious error is not repeated.”
KTVU said: “Nothing is more important to us than having the highest level of accuracy and integrity, and we are reviewing our procedures to ensure this type of error does not happen again.”
Interestingly the names were read out despite the official names being confirmed days earlier by both Asiana and the NTSB.
The two pilots flying the plane were: Lee Jeong Min and Lee Gang Guk.
Three passengers died and more than 180 were injured, 49 seriously, when the 777 came in too low and hit the airport’s runway sea wall.
