By Kang Hyun-kyung
A San Francisco-based TV station fired its staff members weeks after it aired racially offensive names of Korean crew members of Asiana Airlines.
San Francisco Chronicle reported that KTVU dismissed investigative producer Roland DeWolk, special projects producer Cristina Gastelu and producer Brad Belstock after an internal investigation into the July 12 broadcast of four fake names of the pilots of the ill-fated Asian a Flight 214.
The newspaper also quoted news producer Elvin Sledge as telling colleagues that he was leaving for health reasons.
The dismissal came nearly two weeks after the TV station gave the racially offensive names of Korean pilots, namely Capt. Sum Ting Wong, Wi Tu Lo, Ho Lee Fuk and Bang Ding Ow, during its noon newscast. These names sounded like, “something wrong,” “we too low,” “holy f***,” and “bang ding oh.”
The TV station said it confirmed the names with the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). The NTSB later apologized that their names were mistakenly confirmed by its summer intern, adding that it fired the intern.
The U.S. media report drew the ire of Koreans for the inaccurate and offensive names.
Asiana Airlines announced that it will consider suing the NTSB as well as the San Francisco-based TV station for the racially discriminatory names as this disparaged Asians. “The KTVU report damaged the dignities of the four pilots as well as the company. We are mulling taking legal actions against the KTVU and the NTSB which confirmed it,” said Moon Seong-wook, a spokesman of the airline.
He said Asiana would file suit in the U.S. courts.
The deadly crash of the Boeing 777 plane earlier this month took the lives of three Chinese school girls and more than 180 passengers and crew members were injured.