July 7, 2013: Asiana Airlines Flight 214
Crash Landing in San Francisco

A Timeline of Events

The devastating Asiana Airlines crash landing that killed two and
injured nearly 200, happened in the final seconds of a 10 and a
half hour flight from Seoul, South Korea, to San Francisco on
July 6, 2013. The aircraft was carrying 291 passengers
and 16 crew members. Here's a timeline of events:

Click on the dates below to find out more

11:27 a.m. PT

Plane Makes Final Approach

Asiana Airlines Flight 214 was on its final approach at San Francisco International Airport. Visibility was about 10 miles with winds out of the southwest at 7 knots. No distress calls were made from the aircraft, according to air traffic control tapes.

8 Seconds Before Impact At 125 feet above the ground, there was a call in the cockpit for more speed and the throttles began moving forward. The plane was traveling at 112 knots.

3 Seconds Before Impact The plane was traveling at 103 knots, its lowest speed captured by the flight data recorder. At the time, the plane’s engines were at 50 percent power and the engine power was increasing.

1.5 Seconds Before Impact The pilot is heard saying “go around,” according to the cockpit recordings, but no calls were made to air traffic control asking for permission to try to abort the landing.

Flight 214 Crashes at
San Francisco Int’l Airport

Crash Survivors Recall Terror

Witnesses and crash survivors said the plane hit the ground -- tail first -- just
feet from the runway, scattering debris before coming to rest on its belly,
roughly 80 feet from the runway. Within 90 seconds after the crash, the
fuselage burst into flames.

Lee Jang Hyung, 32, was sitting with his wife Lee Jee Young, 33, and
their 15-month-old son in the front row of the plane's economy class section.
His parents-in-law were in business class. Hyung said he and his family survived
the crash without injury, but he was shaken by the harrowing close call.

"Suddenly, the plane's tail part hit the ground and the aircraft bounced upwards
and then bam, it hit the ground again. This time it felt like the entire plane hit
parallel, but tilted to the left. That pressure was huge. Very strong. I saw luggage
fall from the top. And the plane gradually stopped. Until then, there was
no warning," Hyung said.

11:35 a.m. PT

Rescue Crews Race to the Runway

At the scene, there was chaos. Emergency slides
had deployed and many survivors began to escape.

"The chutes had already been deployed and we observed
multiple numbers of people coming down the chutes and
actually walking to their safety, which was a good thing,"
San Francisco Fire Chief Joanne Hayes-White said Saturday.

At two of the exits, emergency slides inflated inside the aircraft,
pinning flight attendants to the interior wall.

1 p.m. PT

Injured Taken to
Nearby Hospitals

By 1 p.m., more than 180 people were transported
to nearby hospitals. "The most critically injured people came
right away. Some of them had burns, they had fractures, they had
internal injuries, internal bleeding, also head injuries ...
we also saw spinal injuries," said San Francisco General Hospital
and Trauma Center spokeswoman Rachael Kagan.

4:18 p.m. PT

Two Fatalities Confirmed

Two people were confirmed dead by the San Francisco
Fire Department.

They were later identified as Wang Linjia and Ye Mengyuan,
both 16-year-old students from China. The students had been in
the rear of the aircraft, where many of the most seriously injured
passengers were seated, according to NTSB Chairman Deborah Hersman.

San Francisco Fire Chief Joanne Hayes-White described
the crash as a "fluid situation" and said that "not everyone has yet
to be accounted for."

7:47 p.m. PT

All Passengers and Crew Accounted For

San Francisco Fire Chief Joanne Hayes-White initially said that "upwards of 60 people were unaccounted for," but San Francisco Mayor Edwin Lee later said all the passengers had been accounted for.

The NTSB launches a full safety investigation into why the crash occurred and who or what is to blame.

"We have a lot of work to do. We're certainly going to be looking at the aircraft to try to find the cockpit flight recorders and flight data recorders as well as document the accident scene. It's still too early for us to tell," said NTSB Chairman Deborah Hersman.

Video of crash:

Asiana Airlines Flight 214 was carrying 291 passengers and 16 crew members when it crashed. The tail was torn off as it crashed, and it burst into flames. More than 180 people were initially taken to local hospitals for treatment.

Why the crash occurred and who or what is to blame are now the focuses of the National Transportation Safety Board’s investigation. Federal investigators have yet to indicate whether the crash can be attributed to pilot error, while they continue to analyze data recovered from the plane's black boxes.

STANDARD VS.
FLIGHT 214

This video shows a comparison of a plane coming in for a landing without error and how Asiana Airlines Flight 214 came in for its crash landing at the San Francisco International Airport on the morning of July 6, 2013.

Investigators have said Flight 214 was flying "significantly below" its target speed during approach when the crew tried to abort the landing just before the plane smashed onto the runway.