On Friday, six days after the tragic Asiana Airlines Flight 214 crash, KTVU, a Fox affiliate San Francisco Bay Area television station, broadcast the names of the four Asiana Airlines Flight 214 pilots as “"Capt. Sum Ting Wong," "Wi Tu Lo," “Ho Lee Fuk,” and “Bang Ding Ow” during its noon broadcast. Evidently, KTVU never said the names out loud before broadcasting them on television.
After the mishap went viral and sparked outrage, KTVU apologized
by Friday night stating that KTVU had confirmed the names of the Asiana
Airlines pilots with the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).
“We made several mistakes when we received this information. First, we never read the names out loud, phonetically sounding them out. Then, during our phone call to the NTSB where the person confirmed the spellings of the names, we never asked that person to give us their position with the agency. We heard this person verify the information without questioning who they were and then rushed the names on our noon newscast.”By 6 p.m. on Friday night, the NTSB also apologized with an official press release.
“The National Transportation Safety Board apologizes for inaccurate and offensive names that were mistakenly confirmed as those of the pilots of Asiana flight 214, which crashed at San Francisco International Airport on July 6. Earlier today, in response to an inquiry from a media outlet, a summer intern acted outside the scope of his authority when he erroneously confirmed the names of the flight crew on the aircraft. The NTSB does not release or confirm the names of crewmembers or people involved in transportation accidents to the media. We work hard to ensure that only appropriate factual information regarding an investigation is released and deeply regret today's incident.”What makes this incident even more puzzling is that the names of the pilot and co-pilot of Asiana Airlines Flight 214 were already released by Asiana Airlines spokeswoman Lee Hyomin according to a Fox News report on July 8, 2013.
Lee Gang-guk, the pilot who was making his first landing
with a Boeing 777 at San Francisco International Airport “was trying to get
used to the 777 during Saturday's crash landing. She says the pilot had nearly
10,000 hours flying other planes, including the Boeing 747, but had only 43
hours on the 777. … Co-pilot Lee Jeong-min has 3,220 hours of flying experience
with the Boeing 777 and a total of 12,387 hours of flying experience, and was
helping his colleague with the landing.”
Does KTVU or the NTSB watch or read the news?
