NTSB: No sign of mechanical problems
Federal investigators wrapping up work at crash site at San Francisco airport
SAN FRANCISCO – Investigators have found no evidence of mechanical problems with Asiana Flight 214, the head of the National Transportation Safety Board said Thursday, putting the focus of the safety probe into the crash landing at the San Francisco airport squarely on the pilots.
In her final briefing before the agency concludes its onsite detective work, NTSB Chairman Deborah Hersman said the airplane itself showed no signs of a breakdown, and on voice recorders, the pilots of the Boeing 777 fail to notice that their approach is dangerously low and slow until it’s too late.
“There is no mention of speed until about nine seconds before impact when they’re at 100 feet,” she said. Just seconds before impact, two of the pilots call for the landing to be aborted.
Investigators have stressed that nothing has been definitively ruled out and no firm conclusions reached. The agency’s final evaluation is expected to take more than a year.
The airliner itself, though heavily damaged in the crash, had no malfunctions in any critical systems, including the engines and flight-control surfaces, the autopilot, the autothrottles and the flight director, she said.
Two people were killed and 180 of the 307 people were hurt Saturday when the airliner slammed into a seawall at the end of the runway. The impact ripped off the back of the plane and scattered pieces of the jet across the runway as it spun and skidded to a stop.
The battered passengers were told over the jet’s public-address system to stay in their seats for another 90 seconds while the cockpit consulted with the control tower, a safety procedure to prevent people from evacuating into life-threatening fires or machinery.
In this accident, authorities are investigating whether one of the two Chinese teens who died may have been run over by a fire truck rushing to the burning jet.
The NTSB investigators will soon head back to Washington with “a mountain of information” to analyze and review, from pieces of the airliner to interview transcripts.