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Elias Diaz
Professor Holly Katharine Guile
English 2010
May 08, 2014
Asiana Airlines Flight 214
In this day in age it is hard to believe that you can get on a plane and be involved in a
plane crash like the one in San Francisco on July 6, 2013. Asiana Airlines Flight 214 was making
its descent from Incheon, South Korea to San Francisco Airport when the tail of the plane hit the
seawall short of the runway on approach. The tail of the plane immediately broke off ejecting
three flight attendants. The flight was flying dangerously low and the speed was low as well. The
pilot, Lee Kang-guk, was a 19 year veteran with Asiana. Granted this was his first attempt to
land a Boeing 777 at San Francisco International. He had landed this plane in eight different
occasions. For him, this was a training flight, as he was switching to a new type of plane,
Asiana Airlines president, Yoon Young-doo said. Ultimately the Asiana president believes that
the trainer pilot is the one responsible for the entire flight because he had the most experience
and should have been making sure that the flight was on track (Sang-hun 2013).
The pilots flying that day told investigators that an automatic throttle had failed to keep
the proper speed for the landing. Their statement does not explain why the speed and altitude
were so far from what it needed to be for a landing at that particular airport. Barry Schiff, a
former TWA pilot and an air safety consultant believes that the mystery of the flight is why
would these pilots sit there and allow their speed to get to such a risky state for a landing like
that. The truth of the matter is that the pilots could have manually taken control of the plane at
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any time but didnt. The landing is not said to be of much difficulty but it does require special
attention to speed (Weikel, Vartabedian, and Nelson 2013). There is a belief that pilots are
getting to dependent on technology and are forgetting how to land planes on their own. These
new technologies are there to help pilots not to do all the work for them.
According to police officials in San Francisco, for the more than 300 people on board the
plane there were only three deaths suffered. One of which was a Chinese teenager, who initially
survived the crash. She was either ejected or seemed to have found enough strength to get out of
the plane. It remains to be unclear. She was apparently ran over by a fire truck responding to the
scene on the runway. Later reports claim she was apparently covered by the foam the crews were
spraying on the Boeing 777 (Chappell 2013). CNNs Anderson Cooper released video on his
show that displays Ye Meng Yuan lying in a fetal position on the ground. Medical examiners
claim she was still alive by this time. In the video you can see a fireman pointing at the body and
telling the driver of the fire truck that she is lying there and to watch out for her. Justin Green the
attorney of the young teenagers family reacted to the video by stating that a firemans first duty
in any medical trauma rescue should have been to check the pulse of Ye and her respiration
which was never done. The video shows at least five firefighters that never did the basics to try
and save her life. Firemen walked passed her and ignored her after initially spotting her.
According to the report they filed against the fire department the family believes that they were
grossly negligent in the handling of the situation. The tire of the truck went right over her head
and she was run over twice by two different trucks as they completely forgot about her. The
video graphically depicts the scenes leading up to her death. Chief Joanne Hayes-White of the
San Francisco Fire Department apologized at first, but after the release of the video they have
now have declined to comment pending further litigation (Griffin, Simon, Ahlers 2014).
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We all know firefighters risk their lives to help people and want to protect them. They
can be heroes one day and zeroes the next. They risk their lives each day as they go out to try and
save lives and at times make human mistakes. In their line of work mistakes can cost lives and in
this case it did. They are deemed negligent acts because they are supposed to be trained and
follow procedures. Procedures that may have saved Yes life that day. Parents of Ye say she was
an outstanding star student, musician, class leader and had plans to one day become a television
newscaster. In China they only get to have one child and thats why it hurts so much for the
parents to lose her. She was the focus of their lives.
This crash really hits close to home for me. I am a regular traveler that has taken the
flight from Incheon to San Francisco many times. It is a connecting flight that I must take to get
to the Philippines where my wife and kids are. When I heard about the crash and viewed the
pictures of the aftermath it was surreal. I thought to myself that this could have been me or my
family. It pains me to think of the loss of my children. It hurts too much to think about it. The
survivors of this crash are extremely lucky. There are two airlines I fly most frequently, Korean
Air and Asiana Airlines. I prefer flying Korean Air if I have the money because it is worth the
added expense and I feel a lot safer flying with them. My heart goes out to the families of the
children that passed away and the passengers who had to suffer through that experience. I hope
that some good can come out of this tragedy and that safety can be made a priority by the airlines
and the fire department so that people dont have to needlessly lose their lives. There are a lot of
things in this world that we cannot avoid. Things that are out of our control. This flight and the
mistakes that were made are not one of those circumstances. This could have been prevented and
it should have been. Now these parents have to go through life without their children.

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Works Cited
Chappell, Bill. "Teen Who Died In Asiana Crash Was Hit By A Firetruck, Police Say." NPR.
NPR, 12 July 2013. Web. 02 Mar. 2014
Sang-hun, Choe. "Asiana President Says Pilot Was in Training." The New York Times. The New
York Times, 08 July 2013. Web. 02 Mar. 2014.
Griffin, Drew, Dan Simon, and Mike M. Ahlers. "Asiana Crash Video: Firefighters Saw Injured
Girl before She Was Run over." CNN. Cable News Network, 16 Jan. 2014. Web. 02 Mar.
2014.
Weikel, Dan, Ralph Vartabedian, and Laura J. Nelson. "Asiana Airlines Pilots Say Auto-throttle
Didn't Maintain Landing Speed." Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles Times, 09 July 2013.
Web. 02 Mar. 2014.