A hearing has commenced for the Asiana Airlines Flight 214 plane crash that occurred in July, injuring over 200 people and killing three young Chinese girls. Investigators are focusing not only on the aircraft and the pilots involved, but also the emergency response team that ran over one of the teenagers who was believed to have survived the plane crash initially.
Pilot Lee Kang Kuk has been under investigation for his manual descent into the San Francisco International Airport, losing the Boeing 777's landing gear and hitting its tail on the seawall just before the crash. The runway landing aids were out of service that day, and Lee told investigators that he was very concerned about landing the heavy plane visually. According to Fox News, the experienced pilot was being trained on the Boeing 777 and had a flight instructor with him in the cockpit.
The first officer onboard the airline reportedly notified both Lee and his instructor of the plane's descent speed several times minutes before the crash. Lee had begun to correct this, but the plane crashed as it was too low for a proper landing. One of the pilot's co-workers reportedly told investigators that Lee had not performed well on a flight just prior to the accident in San Francisco.
The National Transportation Safety Board is also reviewing the emergency response team, who accidentally ran over and killed Ye Mengyuan, one of the Chinese students who was laying on the tarmac after the crash.
Asiana Airlines is reportedly offering $10,000 to each survivor of the plane crash, which does not prevent passengers from filing a lawsuit against them.
