Abort landing! Officials are claiming that Asiana Airline Flight 214 tried to abort the landing just second before it crashed at San Francisco International Airport on Saturday.
National Transportation Safety Board Chairman Deborah Hersman explained the events that took place in the cockpit moments before it crashed, killing two and injuring more than 180 others, CBS reports. Among those events was the request to abort the landing, less than 2 seconds before the crash.
The pilot, Lee Gang-kuk had limited experience with the Boeing 777 and it was his first time landing the aircraft at the San Francisco airport. He only had 43 hours of experience flying the 777 but around 10,000 hours of flying experience in general.
It could take years for officials to come to a conclusion about what caused the crash, but there are already many clues that are being discovered.
According to the plane's cockpit voice recorder, the pilots never claimed that there were any issues as they approached the runway throughout the flight. However seven seconds before the crash, there was a request for more speed as the plane was approaching the runway at a much slower rate than the required 137-knot target speed.
"We are not just talking about a few knots here or there," Hersman said, adding that it was too early to speculate why the plane may have been going too slow.
According to Hersman, a vocal request was heard to start a "go-around," or aborted landing, just 1.5 seconds before the plane crashed. However there were no signals of distress heard from the cockpit.
At 1.5 seconds before the crash, there was a vocal request to initiate a "go-around," or aborted landing.
Before the plane made impact with the ground, Hersman said there was no audible signals of distress from the cockpit, nor any indication the plane was having problems.
Many witnesses said that the plane appeared to be flying very low before the crash. Passenger Benjamin Levy, who flies to the airport often, recalled the event.
"He was going down pretty fast, and I think he just realized he was down too fast," Levy said according to CBS, adding the pilot seemed to push hard on the engines "just as we were about to hit the water."
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