Investigating the Crash of Asiana Airlines Flight 214

July 13, 2013

The wreckage of Asiana flight 214 at San Francisco International Airport.

From VOA Learning English, this is In The News.

American investigators this week examined wreckage from the Asiana Airlines passenger jet that crashed last Saturday at San Francisco airport. Officials say two kinds of equipment, the autopilot and auto-throttle, did not appear to have failed. American and South Korean officials are working together on the investigation. Asiana is Korea's second largest airline after Korean Air.

Asiana Flight 214 was carrying more than 300 people from Seoul to the United States. They included 141 Chinese, 77 Koreans and 61 Americans. Two passengers died after the crash. More than 180 people were taken to California hospitals for treatment. They were injured when the airplane, a Boeing 777, crash-landed.

Information from the plane's flight data recorder shows that the aircraft was traveling too slowly as it came in for a landing. The landing gear struck a seawall at the end of the airport runway, causing the tail end of the plane to break off.

Investigators are also attempting to understand events that led to a 90 second delay in the order for everyone to leave the airplane. The chairwoman of the National Transportation Safety Board, Deborah Hersman, met with reporters Thursday in San Francisco. She said her investigators had questioned six of the 12 flight attendants. The other six remained hospitalized.