Transcripts For KPIX KPIX 5 News At 11pm 20130707

This is kpix 5 news. I just told people were okay. Start getting out. Tonight a father from the bay area who helped dozens of passengers escape Asiana Airlines flight 214 after it crashed at sfo and burst into flames. Good evening, im allen martin. Im an na. This is a special onehour edition of kpix 5 news, and this is a live look at the wreckage at sfo. Who is left of the fuselage is still sitting in the spot where it ended up off runway 28 left. Heres the latest information. All 307 passengers and crew members are now accounted for. Two people have been killed, and cnn reports that they were chinese citizens. Their bodies were found outside the plane. 181 people were injured. Six of them are in Critical Condition. Aif asian experts tell us it looks like the plane kwame in too low and too slow and the plane first hit the rocky seawall right before the runway. Tonight, two of the four runways at sfo remain closed until federal investigators give the okay to open them. That means expect delays on arrivals and departures for several days. Linda yee begins our coverage. Linda. Well, ann, duoof those investigators are already here, but the rest of the team, the National Transportation safety board investigating team from washington dark knight, they are expected to be here in about an hour. That is when they will begin a pain staking investigation to find out exactly what happened. Asiana flight 214 touched down at 11 27 a. M. According to some survivors and witnesses, the tail section hit first. The plane burst into flames, and passengers got out through the escape chute. On arrival, we did observe some of the passengers coming out of the water, but the the flame certainly was not in the water. There was a fire on the plane so the assumption might be that they went near the waters edge, which is very shallow, to maybe douse themselves with water. Rescue crews say it could have been worse. To have 123 walk away from this given the condition of the plane is is incredible to me. I did survey it from looking in the rear of the plane. You know, there was a lot of collapsed seats, a lot of the plane was on fire so quite a bit of damage, quite a bit of damage to that plane and, again, its a miracle really that we had so many survivors. In the minutes following the crash landing, relatives and friends of the passengers frantically tried to get information. None was available. All we know is that we got this picture of a plane on fire. Nobody will come out. Theyve hung up up on us three times. Finally someone is coming out but saying, oh, just go downstairs. No one is out downstairs. The airport was shut down most of the day. By late afsh, passengers were seen rescheduling flights. Working to restore the airport to normal operational status. Weve got a total of four runways at sfo. Two remain closed as a result of this incident. We have reopened two other runways, and we are accepting limited arrivals and departures. Our best advice for passengers traveling at sfo continues to be to check with their airline for the status of their flight. At least this afternoon and into the evening, survivors and family and friends were being reunited here at the air port, and the San Francisco Public Health Department Also sent out groef counselors to support them. Ann. Thanks, linda. Social media was swamped with pictures and video of the crash scene while the plane was still burning on the tarmac. These incredible photos show the moments just after impact. That thick smoke pouring out of the fuselage on the plane. A passenger took this. His daughter said that he texted her that he was okay. This was taken by a man from the 8th floor of his hotel near the airport. Timothy clark says he heard the impact and then looked out, saw a giant cloud of dust rising from the runway. He said he could also see passengers runing from the burning plane. A father of two from San Francisco is being called an hero for helping passengers escape the burning plane. He was headed back from a business trip in asia where he says right before landing, everything turned to slow motion. Screaming. With pain in his ribs but a sense of calm, 39yearold Benjamin Levy helped panicked passengers escape flight 214. The crew was overwhelmed. So he shas he opened the emergency exit door and helped more than 50 passengers off the plane. I just told people, were okay. Come down. Start start getting out, you know, leave your items behind, help each other. From his hospital bed, levy assured us hes okay. He said he realized something was wrong when he looked out the window. There were a few pierres extending out of the runway into the water. I realized quickly, you know, maybe 10 feet above the water, and we are not even on the runway. I dont see runway. I just see water. He says the pilot tried to pull the plane back up. Like, six flags show, right. Youre tied up to your chair and then, again, we are skipping on the runway and felt like we were going back up. I thought maybe we go back up and start flying again. But it was too late. The plane slammed into the runway. As i said, felt like slow motion. Levy says plane was filled with screaming people and smoke. See fire a lot more smoke coming out, explosion coming out. At this point, i felt like most of the people were out of the plane. He says most passengers managed to get out very quickly. He stepped on the remnants of the plane to escape. Im hurting because bruised so its going to hurt for several months probably, but, again, im very very fortunate. Levy says originally thought he broke ribs, but xrays turned up negative. By the way, his wife was scheduled to be on that flight, too, but she caught an earlier flight to be home with her children. Kpix 5 Christin Ayers caught up with other survivors and their worried family members. Christin. Friends and family members waited for hours here in the International Terminal trying to find out if their loved ones were safe. When they finally were reunited with them, they heard so harrowing firsthand accounts. The moment the runway, there was bang, you know, and we we realized that, you know, something has gone wrong, something is terrible. It was over, he says, in ten seconds. He fractured his collarbone in the stent and used one of the planes deployed chutes to evacuate as flames engulfed the aircraft. He says he was one of the lucky ones. Im really thankful. Singh joined the fremds and family of other survivors. The families waited for hours in the reflection room at the airport flanked by Police Officers until escorts took them to a lounge beyond the security gates where they were reunited with the survivors. It was like emotional roller coaster. I was, like, devastated then terrified. June park, whose friend was on board the plane, was still searching for him. His friend called family members to say he was okay after evacuating the plane, but he seemed to disappear after that. After, you know, hearing that hes okay, i was like so relieved and then we dont know so im anxious to figure out where he is so its up and down all day. And, again, 12 hours after that plane crash, everyone account for at this point. Authorities at the airport telling us survivors were sequestered for some time in a club lounge before being reunited with family members. Live in San Francisco airport. Christin ayers, kpix 5. Thank you so much, christin. It stopped over in seoul, korea. The flight from seoul to San Francisco was ten hours and 23 minutes. Asiana says of the 291 passengers and 19 crew members, 141 are chinese. 77 are south korean, and 61 are u. S. Citizens. The nationalities of the other 12 people is unknown at this point. Many passengers were treated at San Francisco jen. Thats where sue quan is. Sue. Hi. We have the Trauma Center here. Thats why there are so many patients here. 53 and all. Out of that group of patients, half were children, and half and one is still in Critical Condition. The first ten patients to arrive at San Francisco jen kwame in Critical Condition. Some required surgery for burns, internal injuries, and broken bones. Two were children. Some of them are in shock. Some are very tearful. Some look stunned. Overall, i think its amazing how how well most of the patients are coping. The er chief says his staff treated several spine and head injuries, possibly caused by the violent bouncing of the plane as it broke into pieces. Closed head injuries, bleeding as a result of a closed head injury, cervical spine injury. Some patients would have intraabdominal injuries to their organs from blunt force trauma. Throughout the afternoon, a seconds, third and fourth we have an of patients with less serious injuries float into the er. Some were treated and released in tents set up outside and for the rest, the hospital cloered a whole floor moving existing patients with lowerlevel care needs to make room for patients. We had 53 patients, 26 children, 57 adults. 6 are in Critical Condition. 7 have been discharged. And tonight, 22 are still being evaluated here at sf jen so you can understand the extra level of staff they had to bring in. They brought in social workers and translaters, as well, and be you can imagine because this flight originated in china and in korea, you had many of the critically injured who only spoke korean so they did bring in these translaters. Also throughout the afternoon, i was having translaters coming up to me and volunteer saying i want to do something. The hospital is overwhelmed with those officer and says the best people can do is go to their locale blood bank and donate blood, which is already short. Avn. Hopefully people will do that. Thank you, sue. Stanford University Hospital was also pressed into service. Quickly assembled seven trauma teams. 45 survivors were brought in by helicopter, ambulance and bus. Probably within 30 minutes or even less, we had over 150 healthcare providers, including physicians, nurses and all kinds of support systems. 16 of the injured were admitted to stanford, and three of them are in Critical Condition tonight. Well, coming up, what we have just learned about one of the pilots on board. Plus its going to be chaos at the airport for days. Just look at all that luggage. Where do they even given. The boeing 777, one of the safest planes in the sky. Hero on the hudson pilot Sully Sullenberger weighs in on what went wrong. Well, what, about ten seconds time . Your instincts take over. You really dont know whats really going on. ,,,,,, working together to figure t what caused the crash. Another look at the wreckage at sfo. The ntsb and fbi will be working together to figure out what caused the crash. And tomorrow, San Francisco chronicle will have an indecht look at the asiana crash. Heres a look at the front page of the sunday paper. The headline, a tragic day. Reuters tonight is identifying one of the four pilots as lee jung min. Hes a vet van pilot who spent his entire career with asiana. The four pilots on the plane rotate twoperson shifts during that ten and a half hour flight. Of course, the cause of the crash still not known, but early reports indicate the labding gear hit a rock wall off the enl of the runway causing the plane to careen out of control. Flights are arriving and departing at sfo again tonight but joe vasquez shows us still total chaos inside. Joe. Allen, it is still a mess here at sfo. 12 hours after the crash and right now, a lot of people still in line trying to figure out where theyre going to go, how theyre going to catch their next flight after all those cancellations. The auer port is officially saying that they have four run waist on a normal day, but theyre only able to use two right now, but unofficially on the ground what that means is a lot of rescheduling and even sochl people are camping up. The situation is they have no connecting flights to get us out of here until tuesday the 9th. Our option was either to stay here until tuesday or to fly back to burbank and then get another flight out monday afternoon. What you looking at right now is terminal 3, domestic. Look at these long lines. One couple told us they had been waiting in line for three hours, and this is the line, get this, to rebook, that is to book their next flight and what they being told is they will not be able to book anything tomorrow. It will have to be monday or tuesday before they can get out of here. Weve been up since 3 00 this morning. This is rebooking. This is skwlus the line to rebook. Yeah. Its just to rebook our flight. The phone told us we couldnt get out until the 10th, but were going to try at the counter. This is the rebooking line. How long have you been in this loin. Three hours. Three hours. Three hours to rebook. Yes. Youre not even sure what youll get on. Yeah. There was, like, American Red Cross people, and they were making 85 sandwiches here. This is one floor down. Baggage claim. Loofk at this. Thousands and thousands of bags of luggage. In fact, in some cases, lights arrived. People were not matched up with their bags, and theyre literally looking for them right now wandering through the lines of baggage trying to find theirs. I left at 6 00 a. M. In the morning, had a layover in chicago for three hours, and then we got diverted to denver and then weve been stranded at denver since 11 00 a. M. In the morning. Finally our flight made it here, and now i cant find my bag. Those stories go on and on and on. Were going into four and five hours in line right here tonight. A couple other complications. One is that all the hotels they would normally send people to, to get the discount, theyre already booshged, so a lot of peechl are simply camping out here tonight. The other complication is simply that whereas normally you might have some indication of what your flight might be tomorrow or what its going to look like tomorrow and the next day and, allen, i have to be honest to tell you officials are not able to tell people that. Theyre saying check with your airlines. That might not even be enough right now its so chaotic. All right. Thanks for the latest. Crash at the asiana flight caused say i dont say in the skies, too. Flights bound for sfo were diverted to san jose. Oakland, sacramento, and los angeles, and by 3 00 this afternoon, more than 230 flights were cancelled. One woman bound for hawaii says the waiting is the worst part. Every place is so chaotic. When you got off the plane, you didnt know where to go or what to do because if you were going on another flight, you didnt know whether you were gonna be able to catch it or not catch it so thats what weve all been kind of worried about. We still dont know until we get to San Francisco whether or not we get to take our flight or not. And oakland air part spokesman tells kpix 5, four of the airlines rerouted to oakland were international flights. 27 flights were september onto san jose. This is how one eyewitness in millbrae described what happened. All of a sudden i looked out and seen this plane coming in. What caught my attention was it was just a little wobbly coming in for the landing. It just didnt look like planes do when theyre landing. We see planes landing all the time. All of a sudden, we just heard really loud boom, and before we knew it, the plane had come to a stop about 50 yards down, and it was just lost in this sea of black smoke and what looked like dust. Saw the emergency slides have been deployed and people were starting to come off. They were walking away towards the terminal. It seemed to be pretty orderly. We saw the emergency responders, you know, approaching, and as we saw that, we you know, we watched, and it just seemed like things were starting to tie down, and then about 15, 20 minutes after the initial impact, the first boom, we then heard a second loud boom or explosion, and all of a sudden we saw a lot of black smoke going back up into the sglie now, one passenger sitting in the middle of that plane said there was no warning from the pilot or any crew members before the crash, but listen to parts of the exchange between flight 214 pilots and air trofk control as the plane was approaching sfo. 214 heavy emergency vehicles are responding. Emergency. Okay. No. Asiana 214 heavy mrnl vehicles are responding. We have everyone on their way. That communication one of the elements investigators will be scrutinizing. Talked to aviation experts about what may have gone wrong. Don. Should have touched down about a thousand feet from the runway threshold by the bay. Instead, as this animation shows, the flight striking the ground short of the runway then with its tail severed sliding off to the side and burning. Mir cal on the hudson captain Sully Sullenberger suggests possible reasons for the plane crash. It was low and slow. In other words, he did not have enough air speed or altitude for the runway, and so he struck the end of the runway with his tail. That tells me, also, with the tail that his nose must have been high instead of flat. Sfo was undergoing runway construction according to captain Sully Sullenberger. As part pof the construction process,some electronic vertical guidance that normally is available to pilots when you land even in good weather was not there. It was not available to them because of the construction being relocated. Captain says on a clear day like this, pilots would not have needed the glide path signal. All the Airline Pilots that ive flown with make the landing by ie ball visually once were close to the runway. If the plane was too low and too slow, one of the pilots should have noticed the problem. The fix for that is go around again if they notice it in time. Fatigue if they were very very tired. Ive flown tired. Every pilot i know has flown very, very tired. You got a Beautiful Day like this. This is the day you look forward to, to make a squeaker landing. Perfect landing. So its hard for me to understand. Captain dick says in contrast and catastrophic cash crashes like this, what initially appears to be the problem may turn out to be something very different once the investigation is completed. Reporting live in the news room, don knapp, kpix 5. In a Statement Released earlier today, Asiana Airlines said its currently investigating the specific cause of the incident as well as any injuries sustained by passengers as a result. Heres background on the boeing 777. Its been in use since 1995. Todays crash is the first deadly incident involving a boeing 777. Today the last one of these planes to crash was in 2008. Thafts when a British Airways crash landed short of the runway at Londons Heathrow airport. Almost 50 people were on board that were hurt. Now, last time ap commercial plane crashed in the United States was 2009 when a Continental Express flight crashed into a house near buffalo, new york. All 49 people were killed, plus the homeowner. Coming up, the added wrinkle for doctors treating plane crash survivors. Thanks roberta. ,, uhoh guess what day it is . . Guess what day it is huh. Anybody . Julie hey. Guess what day it is . . Ah come on, i know you can hear me. Mike Mike Mike Mike mike. What day is it mike . Ha ha ha ha ha ha leslie, guess what today is . Its hump day. Whoot whoot ronny, how happy are folks who save hundreds of dollars switching to geico . Id say happier than a camel on wednesday. Hump day yay get happy. Get geico. Fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more. Hard to believe the weather could have been a factor in the crash. It was so nice. The winds were consider bring less than yesterday when we had those blustery gusts up to 35 Miles Per Hour. Today the winds were under 12 Miles Per Hour for the bulk of the day until late in the evening hours. Good evening, everybody. Lets head outside right now with mostly cloutdy conditions over the bay bridge. Temperature wise kooming dpoun. The winds are preltty much under 10 in most locations except for napa. Out of the northwest at 12 Miles Per Hour. Heres what we need to know as we wake up for sunday. We have the clouds now. Areas of patchy fog. That leads us with cloud cover tomorrow morning and sunny and even warmer than today. No dra makt swiengs in our temperatures for the next 7 days. Tuch cost clear loi illustrates we do have the clouds san man area. Look tomorrow moorning, 10 00 a. M. Still hanging tight ot coast. Also at the delta and north of the Golden Gate Bridge then gradually reseeding to some sunny skieds and some ample warming during the Late Afternoon hours. In fact, after tonights lows, which tumble into the low to mid 50s tomorrow with south and soit east breeze 5 to 15 Miles Per Hour. Well experience highs from the 60s at the coast. Low 80s Santa Clara Valley to nearly 90 and throughout the trooi valley. Also numbers, 91 frees. Warmer monday tuesday and we begin to cool down by the midweek. Thats pinpoint forecast. Coming up, how do airports prepare for what we saw today . We found out why the timing was particularly challenging. Wreckage at sfo as we [ roars ] [ roars ] [ roars ] [ male announcer ] Universal Studios summer of survival. Experience theticket to pressurerelieving comfort of tempurpedic, and sleep riskfree with sleep trains 100day money back guarantee. Get 36 months interestfree financing no down, and no interest for 3 years. Plus, get free sameday delivery. Sleep trains 100day money back guarantee, interestfree financing, and free delivery . Thats the ticket sleep trains ticket to tempurpedic ends sunday. Sleep train your ticket to a better nights sleep. This bram brought to you by your california ford dealer. Ford is the right choice for california. This is a live look at the wreckage at sfo as we continue our coverage of todays plane crash. Asiana Airlines Flight 214 charred metal covers the top of the fuselage. Emergency officials tell us the evacuation was very orderly. The bodies of the two parttime cull killed identified as chinese nationals were found outside the plane 181 people were treated for injuries. Most were not serious, but there are at least six people in Critical Condition. Aviation experts tell us it looks like the plane kwame in too low and too slow. The plane first hit the rocky seawall ahead of the runway before careening out of control and bursting into flames. Social media, again, playing a huge role in spreading the story of todays crash. This video was on you tube without just a couple of hours of the accident. Just one of several. Tlrm also tens of thousands of tumblr, instagram and twitter posts. I can see the fire trucks and the emergency shrewds and then just all of the vehicles. You could see the the sirens just going, vehicles everywhere. Kpix 5 linda is at sfo with an update. Seems like its still a very busy night. It is. You can see behind me most of the passengers that are going out still tonight have already checked in and are at their gates. We are expecting in about 30 minutes the chief investigator for the National Transportation safety board. The rest of his team flying in from washington wa deposition d dc. According to some sur vooirs and witnesses, the tail section hit first. The plane burst into flames. Passengers had to scramble to get through the escape chute. The more severe injured were taken out by fire res crew crews. They are saying it is a miracle so many people survived without injury. To have 123 roughly walk away from this given the the condition of the plane is is incredible to me sgli did survey it from looking in the rear of the plane. You know, there was a lot of collapsed seats, a lot of the plane was on fire so quite a bit of dpaj. Quite a bit of damage to that plane. Again, its a miracle really that we had so many survivors. The bodies of the two dead were found on the tarmac when crews did arrive. The San Francisco Public Health grief counselors were also on the scene to help support some of the survivors as well as family and friends. Anl. Linda, weve been looking at leigh pictures of the plane. I im curious will the ntsb begin an investigation when they arrive tonight or will they start in the morning hours. We did get the ibd kags earlier that as soon as they arrived that investigation will begin, however, there was an nts b investigator already on the scene. They may look at the preliminary scene and the wreckage. We were told that the ntsb, as well as the air part, will give us another update and breefg some time tomorrow morning so hopefully theyll have enough to tell us, you know, what they see as soon as they get on the ground. Linda yee, sfo, thank you. Many of the passengers were treated at San Francisco jen. It has one of the top trauma units in the bay area. That is where sue has been all day for us. Sue. Yes. They are fully staffed in response mode here. Theyve had this disaster training and say today everything wofshged as planned. They had 53 of the injures brought here and half of those patients were children. All throughout the morning and afternoon we saw ambulances pull up and unload people on foot, on gurney, all ajs. Many were korean or chinese decent. Tonight 22 patients are still being evaluated. Injuries range from burns,