波音777曾试图中止迫降

 

The pilot was flying into San Francisco for the first time at the controls of a 777, Asiana Airlines says.

 

The flight from Seoul with 307 people fell short of the runway on Saturday, killing³ two and injuring dozens.

 

The aircraft apparently⁴ hit a sea wall, ripping off（扯掉） its tail. 

 

Passengers and crew escaped down emergency slides as it burst into flames.

 

Asiana confirmed that two female Chinese teenagers died in the crash. They had been seated at the back of the aircraft.

 

They are believed to be the first-ever fatalities⁵ in a Boeing 777 crash.

 

San Francisco's coroner is currently trying to establish whether one of the two fatalities occurred after a passenger was run over by an emergency vehicle rushing to the scene of the crash.

 

'Everything is on the table'

 

At a news conference on Sunday, National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) chief Deborah Hersman said aircraft speed was below the planned 137 knots (158mph; 254km/h) as it approached the runway.

 

Citing information both from the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder, she said there was a call to increase the speed about two seconds before the impact.

 

The pilot then requested to abort the landing and "go around", Ms Hersman added. 

 

"We have to take another look at the raw data and corroborate⁶（证实） it with radar⁷ and air traffic information to make sure we have a very precise speed. 

 

"But again, we are not talking about a few knots here or there. We're talking about a significant amount of speed below 137," she said.

 

Asked about possible reasons for this, Ms Hersman stressed that "everything is on the table" and "it is too early to rule anything out".

 

It has now emerged that although the pilot who was at the controls had nearly 10,000 flying hours - only 43 hours of those were on a Boeing 777.

 

Asiana Airlines said that Lee Kang-kook was assisted by another pilot who had more experience flying that type of aircraft. 

 

Although he had flown into San Francisco 29 times at the controls of other types of aircraft, this was the first time he was doing so at the controls of a Boeing 777.

 

In a separate development, US officials confirmed that a navigation system helping⁸ pilots make safe descents was turned off for maintenance at San Francisco airport. 

 

The Glide⁹ Path is used for landings in bad weather conditions; however, it was clear and sunny when the Asiana Airlines aircraft crashed on Saturday.

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