Yahoo – AFP,
24 June 2014
 |
A July 6,
2013 view of an Asiana Airlines Boeing 777 on the runway at
San Francisco
International Airport after it crashed while landing
|
The pilots
of a South Korean airliner that crashed in San Francisco last year depended too
much on automated systems they didn't understand, the head of the National
Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said Tuesday.
Acting NTSB
chairman Christopher Hart made the statement at the start of a day-long hearing
to establish the probable cause of the Asiana crash that left three dead and
187 injured.
"The
Boeing 777 is one of the more sophisticated and automated aircraft in
service," said Hart in his opening remarks.
"But
the more complex automation becomes, the more challenging it is to ensure that
pilots adequately understand it," he said.
"In
this instance, the flight crew over-relied on automated systems that they did
not fully understand. As a result, they flew the aircraft too slow and collided
with the seawall at the end of the runway."
The crash
of Asiana Flight 214 on July 6 was a the first fatal commercial airline
disaster in the United States since 2009.
The Boeing
777 was completing an otherwise routine 10-1/2 hour flight from Seoul when it
clipped the seawall at San Francisco International Airport July 6 with its
landing gear, skidded off the runway and burst into flames.
All three
of the fatalities were young Chinese women, including one who was struck by a
fire truck beneath a wing covered with firefighting foam.
Hart said
the NTSB's aim was "to help prevent similar accidents in the future,"
before on-the-ground investigators took turns presenting their findings.
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