Asiana may sue NTSB, KTVU
A group of technicians look at the wreckage of Asiana Airlines Flight 214 in San Francisco, Friday. Nearly one week after the crash-landing, the wrecked fuselage was moved from the runway. The aircraft crashed at San Francisco International Airport on July 6, claiming lives of three Chinese school girls and injuring more than 180 passengers and crew members. / AP-Yonhap
By Kim Jae-won
Asiana Airlines said Sunday that it is considering filing a defamation suit against the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) and a California-based TV network for ridiculing the four pilots of its crashed Boeing 777 by mistakenly confirming and airing their names.
KTVU Channel 2 announced Friday four prank names of the pilots ㅡ Captain Sum Ting Wong, Wi Tu Lo, Ho Lee Fuk and Bang Ding Ow, which sounded like “something wrong,” “we too low,” “holy f***,” and “bang ding oh.”
KTVU, a Fox affiliate in the San Francisco Bay Area, claimed that the names were confirmed by the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).
“The KTVU report damaged the dignities of the four pilots as well as the company. We are mulling taking legal actions against KTVU and the NTSB which confirmed it,” said Moon Seong-wook, a spokesman of the airline.
Moon said that the airline’s legal team is reviewing the case, and will make a final decision on the matter after the examination.
Both the station and NTSB apologized for the blunder.
“We misidentified the pilots in the Asiana Airlines crash. KTVU accepts full responsibility for this mistake. From everyone here at KTVU, we offer our sincerest apology,” aired the station.
“The National Transportation Safety Board apologizes for inaccurate and offensive names that were mistakenly confirmed as those of the pilots of Asiana flight 214. Earlier today, 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 said.
Despite the apologies, many Koreans vented their anger online against the TV station for airing the racially insensitive broadcasting.
“I was very upset with the news. I have no doubt that the TV station sought to mock Asians with the names,” said Lim Soo-hyang, a housewife in Ilsan, Gyeonggi Province.
Koreans spread quickly spread the news through social network services, including Twitter. Some even posted comments that the U.S. is no longer a blood ally of the country.
The crash of the Boeing 777 plane claimed the lives of three Chinese school girls and injured more than 180 passengers and crew members.
One of them, indentified as 16-year-old Chinese school girl Liu Yipeng, died Friday from her injuries.
Liu was a classmate of Ye Mengyuan and Wang Linjia, both 16, who were killed in the crash. All three were part of a group of Chinese students traveling to Los Angeles for a three-week summer camp.