states, the 25th busiest airport, in fact, in the entire world. these folks working there know what they re doing and know how to respond and to respond quickly to save lives, correct? that s right. this is the first major crash at sfo airport, i believe, in over 60 years, so it is a relatively it is a very safe airport despite an area that has a lot of wind, has a lot of fog, even during the summer. but all reports today is that this was a clear windless day in the san francisco bay area. and the runways themselves surrounded by the san francisco bay, water there. there s four ru runways. 281l is 11,000 feet long. there s a rocky threshold before you hit the runway. there s also an instrument landing system as well as visual glide slope indicators that will help the pilot determine the
middle of another area of the runway there. that obviously made this fire not as intense as it possibly could have been? yeah, there is obviously in an aircraft like this. there are many, many sources of ignition if there is fuel leaking. you might remember the swiss air crash caused by the on board entertainment system and movies had a short, there was a short in the wiring and it caused the cabin and cockpit to fill with smoke and that caused the plane to go down. there are many different. it could have been the engine and it could have sparked the fire that consumed part of the fuselage. but the fact that the plane had the kind of landing it did and relatively intact is a testament
their initial call, they were told they were responding to a hard landing. so that description, what they were told they were responding to in addition to the reports on the tower tapes, does that tell you that there was any indication that there was a problem, prior to landing? if you are sitting in the pointy nose of the airplane. you would characterize that as a hard landing. at the very least. it was a lot more than that. in naval aviation we call that a ramp strike. it was more than a hard landing, but at the time, being in the airplane, when that tail smacked down and ripped off, that took the front end of the airplane and slammed it on the runway and when it did that, it probably shoved the landing gear up in
related to the runway. this is the first major commercial jet crash in the u.s. in more than a decade and the first jet airliner in the runway in the san francisco airport. there were four incident it is in the past 13 years but none of them involving the runway. heather, back to you. elizabeth, we appreciate the work you have done this evening. joining me on the phone is peter. thank you so much for joining us. you watched the pictures unfold as we all have throughout the day. and what are you taking away from the crash? i think there is two things. one is, the triple seven is a fabulous aircraft. it has a great reputation and record and ntsb and along with
flight was ready it land in san francisco, with throw 307 souls on board. the plane flipped over and skidded down the runway on its back and missed a united flight waiting to take off. somehow the crew deplayed emergency chute ands many people were seen scrambled to safety. dozens needed treatment for smoke and fire injuries. we are told that the pilot did not make any distress call before landing. federal agents have come out to say it was not a case of terrorism, but it was a te a terrifying day. the airport is slowly starting to resoum operations.