Fake Asiana pilot names are now the subject of a lawsuit. The airline is planning to sue a tv station after they falsely reported racist names of the supposed pilots of Flight 214, which crashed in San Francisco.
Asiana Airlines claims that their reputation was damaged by a report on San Francisco TV station, KTVU-TV, in which they released incorrect, racially insensitive names of the pilots involved in the crash. According to the Los Angeles Times, Spokeswoman Lee Hyomin said the airline is suing the station to "strongly respond to its racially discriminatory report."
The report turned out to be a joke, but the producers of KTVU-TV might be supremely embarrassed for not realizing the error before it was broadcasted to the public. On July 6, the station released a statement, saying "We have new information also on the plane crash. KTVU has just learned the names of the four pilots who were on board the flight. They are captain Sum Ting Wong, Wi Tu Lo, Ho Lee Fuk and Bang Ding Ow. The NTSB has confirmed these are the names of the pilots on board flight 214 when it crashed. We are working to determine exactly what roles each of them played during the landing on Saturday."
If they had sounded out the names, they might have realized that something wasn't quite right. The station claimed that the names were confirmed by an official from the NTSB. It turned out that the official was just an intern. The station and the NTSB expressed regret over the incident.
The airline revealed the actual name of two of the pilots, Lee Kang-kook and Lee Jung-min. Both men along with two other pilots have been questioned about the crash which killed two young girls. One other young girl later died from her injures. About 180 people were hospitalized after the crash.
This lawsuit may be hard to argue. There's not doubt that the station reported false information which may have been offensive to Asians, however the airline would have to prove that the false report caused so much damage to the airline, that they lost business because of it, which would be very hard to prove.
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
