Pieces of Plane Broke Off During Landing

Noah Berger/Associated Press

Rescue workers circle Asiana Flight 214 after it crashed at San Francisco International Airport.

By RAVI SOMAIYA

Published: July 6, 2013

An Asiana jetliner from Seoul, South Korea, crashed while landing Saturday at San Francisco International Airport, the Federal Aviation Administration said. Pieces of the airplane broke off as it careened down the runway.

The jetliner, Flight 214 from Seoul’s Incheon airport, carried 291 passengers and 16 crew members, the airline said. It was unclear how many on board might have been injured or killed, though many passengers were seen scrambling down inflated escape chutes. The crash was the first in the United States since February 2009.

Smoke billowed out of holes in the fuselage of the Boeing 777 as firefighters rushed to the wreckage on the runway. Aircraft parts were scattered across the tarmac — the plane’s wheels, tail and one engines were ripped off.

“I looked up out the window and saw the plane coming in extremely fast and incredibly heavy,” said Isabella Lacaze, 18, from Fort Worth, who witnessed the crash from the San Francisco Airport Marriott Waterfront.

“It came in at a 30- or 45-degree angle and the tail was way, way lower than the nose,” said another witness, Stefanie Turner, 32, from Arizona.

The plane clipped something as it touched down near the sea wall, Ms. Lacaze said. “And then it hit one of the planes that was already on the runway.”

The plane that was hit said United on its side, she said, but did not appear to sustain much damage. Other witnesses were unsure whether the Asiana plane had hit another aircraft.

“I remember watching the nose go to the ground and the tail way up in the air and then the tail back to ground hard,” Ms. Lacaze said, describing the plane careening out of control. At that point the tail snapped off and the rest of the plane skidded down the runway.

“The smoke was not bad at all at first,” she said. “It was like one cloud. It took maybe a minute or two for the chutes to come out of the side,” and people began to pour out almost immediately.

David Eun, who said in a Twitter message that he had been a passenger on the plane, posted a picture of a downed Asiana jetliner from ground level that showed some passengers walking away from the aircraft.

An aviation official who did not want to be identified said that the plane was not making an emergency landing and that the situation had been entirely routine until the crash. The cause was unclear.

Arnold Reiner, a retired airline captain and the former director of flight safety at Pan Am, said that it appeared from television images that the jetliner had touched down far earlier than the normal landing point, which is about 1,000 feet down the runway. That runway, 28 Left, has a “displaced threshold,” he said, meaning that the runway’s usable area does not begin at the start of the pavement. The Instrument Landing System would normally guide the pilot to the proper touchdown point, but in clear weather, pilots will sometimes fly a visual approach.

If the plane touched down too soon, before the paved area or before the area intended for landings, it might have torn off its landing gear, he said, and begin to skid along on its engine cowlings. “At that point, all bets are off,'’ he said, and the tail might have hit the ground with more force than the fuselage was intended to handle.

One question for investigators, Mr. Reiner said, is who was at the controls. The 777 has a two-pilot cockpit but on a flight that long, there is typically a “relief pilot” or two on board, so no one has to work continuously for the entire flight.

Steven B. Wallace, who was the director of the office of accident investigation at the F.A.A. from 2000 to 2008, said that “it seems clear that the airplane hit short of the runway.”

“Why that happened, I don’t know,” he said. Mr. Wallace, who is a licensed commercial pilot, said the pilot could have made a mistake and come in too low or there could have been wind shear.

Even though the runway stretches to the sea wall, planes normally would not touch down until they had passed gold markings a safe distance down the runway. But videos show significant debris between the markings and the sea wall, he said.

The runway is 11,381 feet long and 200 feet wide. The designation 28 for the runway indicates that the plane was landing toward the west.

The 777 has an exceptionally capable flight data recorder, one of the two “black boxes” on the plane, which could quickly provide important details.

The last few years have been an exceptionally safe period for airline travel in the United States. The last crash was in February 2009, when a twin-engine Continental turboprop approaching Buffalo on a flight from Newark crashed into a house about five miles from the airport. All 44 passengers and the crew of four died, along with one person on the ground.

Korean carriers have historically had more difficulty.

In August 2001, the Federal Aviation Administration froze service from Korean carriers coming into the United States, limiting them to the schedules and aircraft they were then flying, because it considered safety regulation by the South Korean government inadequate. The restrictions were later lifted.

In December, 1999, a Korean Airlines 747 cargo jet crashed near London. In August, 1997, a Korean Air 747 came in short of the runway in Guam, killing 228 people.

Asiana Airlines, established in 1988, is based in South Korea and also flies to Los Angeles, Seattle, Chicago and New York, in addition to various destinations in Europe, the Russian far east, China, Southeast Asia and elsewhere. It operates 12 Boeing 777 extended-range aircraft, according to its Web site, and offers suites for first-class passengers with what is described as the world’s largest television screens for individual travelers.

China and Russia send joint force of 19 warships to Sea of Japan in largest ever naval exercise

China and Russia have launched what Beijing described as its "largest ever joint naval exercise" as an armada of military hardware descended on the Sea of Japan.

Chinese destroyer Wuhan leads a fleet of naval ships, heading to take part in a joint exercise with Russia in the Sea of Japan AP

China and Russia have launched what Beijing described as its "largest ever joint naval exercise" as an armada of military hardware descended on the Sea of Japan.

A total of 18 surface vessels, including four guided missile destroyers, two missile frigates, a supply ship, and three ship-borne helicopters were due to take part, according to Chinese state media, as well as a submarine.

The move to deepen military ties between Moscow and Beijing with the operation, called "Joint Sea 2013", comes against the backdrop of territorial disputes in the region and will heighten fears of China's growing naval reach and ambition.

China's official news agency, Xinhua, described the drill as "the Chinese navy's single biggest deployment of military force in any joint foreign exercise."

Major General Yang Junfei, the Chinese fleet's commander, told Xinhua: "This is our strongest line-up ever in a joint naval drill." China was sending "seven ships, three helicopters and one special warfare unit", he added.

The Sino-Russian war games will kick off in full next week when the two navies are set to simulate "recapturing ships seized by pirates, as well as search-and-rescue operations [and] a number of air defence, anti-submarine and anti-ship exercises," Xinhua reported. Two commando units will also take part.

China's defence ministry said "the drills are not targeted at any third party, and that the aim is to deepen cooperation between the two militaries".

But the United States' "pivot" to Asia and continuing maritime disputes with neighbours including Japan, the Philippines and Vietnam mean Beijing is increasingly keen to project its growing military prowess and assert its control over the seas.

In April China announced that its first aircraft carrier, the 990ft Liaoning, was preparing to make its maiden long distance journey by the end of 2013.

Last Wednesday the Liaoning returned to port from a 25-day training mission during which Chinese J-15 fighter jets practised take-offs and landings. Zhang Yongyi, a deputy navy commander, told state media his country had now "fully mastered the skills needed for taking off from, and landing on, the aircraft carrier".

Japan, which is locked in an increasingly acrimonious dispute with China over the uninhabited Senkaku/Diaoyu islands in the East China Sea, is unlikely to miss the message from Beijing.

"In general terms, I don't think the Japanese government will see this as an increase in the threat aimed at Japan, but it is clearly aimed at the Japan-US alliance and is a clear statement by the Chinese that they now have an ally in the region," said Jun Okumura, an international relations analyst with the Eurasia Group.

"Does this mean that the Russians will come to China's defence in the event of a conflict? No. But something like this makes for a very effective political show.

"Russia does not have any strategic interests in the South China Sea, but China is enhancing the potential of all its military forces by conducting joint exercises with another major world power."

Russia's official news agency, RIA Novosti, noted that the drills came "in the wake of the Dawn Blitz US-Japanese war games" which took place last month off the coast of California.

At that drill, around 250 members of Japan's Western Army joined US forces in simulating the storming of an island by landing on San Clemente's Red Beach.

The Japanese government has made no comment on the naval drills between China and Russia but will take the exercise as confirmation that is current policy towards Beijing is appropriately firm.

Beijing also appears to be upping the ante in waters close to Japan. Aircraft from Japan's Maritime Self-Defence Forces have confirmed the presence of unidentified foreign submarines in waters around the Okinawa archipelago in recent weeks and the assumption is that they are Chinese.

On Wednesday, in another show of strength, a fleet of seven Chinese warships - including four destroyers and two guided-missile frigates - passed through the international waters of the Tsushima Strait, off the Japanese island of Kyushu.

A report from Japan's Kyodo news agency suggested Beijing was attempting to maximise the current exercise in order to flex its military muscle on the world stage.

An unnamed source from Russia's Pacific Fleet told Kyodo that China had specifically asked for the number of vessels involved in the exercise to be increased.

The week-long joint drill follows a similar exercise between China and Russia in April 2012. Then, 16 Chinese vessels, including five missile destroyers and five missile frigates, were deployed in the Yellow Sea off China's eastern coast alongside 13 aircraft.

China and Russia have been conducting joint military exercises since 2005 and "Joint Sea 2013" will be followed by a joint "anti-terrorism" drill in the Urals in late July.

Saturday, July 6, 2013