assembly had been broken loose and broken away from the fusleage. that flight was coming in quickly. 1400 foot per second. and as we hear from the people who witnessed the crash. and we are getting plenty of reaction from the fa a, and other investigators. elizabeth is live in washington. what is next for the investigators? we heard from the ntsb chair woman about how extensive the investigation will be. members of the time are loving washington d.c. and heading to the bay area. throw investigators are on the west coast. they will take in to account air traffic control and weather and maintenance issues.
i think those questions you are asking, we got the call at 11 time time 34 and it is just a few hours afternoon. and ntsb will come work with the fbi. it is unrolistic to give you the answer to that. (inaudible) and just to comment on the status of the airport. weather conditions were as we continue to have them at this time. weather conditions were clear in san francisco airport. all aircraft were arrivingousing arriving using visual flight. we are resuming normal operation. we ll have a follow-up broefing
at 5:30. that was a new s conference happening in san francisco international airport. and now confirm there are two fatalities as a result of the crash. the asiana airline flight headed from south korea to san francisco. and also of note, not everyone is accounted for. and we can take you through those numbers from the four chief. joanna white as she was speaking, she said this flight, there were 291 passengers on board along with 16 crew. that would be a total of 307 people on board of this flight. 48 of those were transported initially when the plane crash happen to area hospitals.
with a stop off in south korea and headed to san francisco, crash landing this afternoon, video showing the fusel age burned away and tail gone and engine missing. 291 passengers were on board. the san francisco fire chief confirmed two people were killed and others unaccounted for and the mayor saying that as well. we are hearing for more witnesses of the crash of the boeing 777 including one woman who was on board, on board of another plane quarter mile of the asiana flight 214 when it made a crash landing. she managed to snap pictures and she joins us now. margaret, what were you thinking when you saw the plane coming down in flames?
the plane would land short of the runway. in the end of the new s conference they spoke about the weather conditions, saying it was all clear at the time of the crash, and the pilots were using visual flight rules when landing. can you describe that to us a little more? sure, in poor weather conditions, they will use autopoilt and the computer flies the airplane down to minimums and where we will break out of the clouds and so the runway and the pilot turns the autopilot off and land manually. on visual days like this, we like to fly because we don t depend on the computers. it is fairly normal for the pilot to be hand flying and