Also, an amazing photo of the moments following the crash has been posted to Twitter by a passenger, Ben Levy, on the doomed flight after he self-evacuated. (He was later treated for injuries at San Francisco General Hospital and released.)
6:04 p.m. Update: San Francisco General Hospital had received 34 patients from the crash, including 11 children and 23 adults, according to hospital spokeswoman Rachel Kagan. This was out of the total of 181 who were injured, 49 seriously. Two people are confirmed dead and one remains unaccounted for. The earlier larger number of “unaccounted” passengers are now believed to be those who "self-evacuated" from the plane after it crashed.
5:45 p.m. Update: SFO Officials have updated the injury numbers from today's crash of Asiana Airlines Flight 214. They now report 181 people were hurt in the crash landing, 49 seriously. An additional 123 people were uninjured. Two people are confirmed dead and as of this hour one person remains unaccounted for.
5:24 p.m. Update: Asiana Airlines reports there were a total of 291 passengers (19 business class, 272 travel class) and 16 cabin crew aboard. Of the passengers, there were 77 Korean citizens, 141 Chinese citizens, 61 U.S. citizens, 1 Japanese citizen, and 11 whose citizenship was not identified.
4:50 p.m. Update: Officials report that more than 60 passengers remain unaccounted for from today's crash of Asiana Airlines Flight 214.
4:10 p.m. Update: San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee announced at a press briefing at SFO that "not everyone has been accounted for" in the crash. There are as of now two confirmed deaths. A total of 130 people have reportedly been injured, 40 critically. There were 291 passengers and 16 crew members on the flight, which originated in Shanghai, with a stop in Seoul. Officials stated that there is no indication that terrorism was involved in the crash.
3:45 p.m. Update: Two runways have reopened at San Francisco International as of 3:30 p.m. SFO officials said all flights were suspended or diverted to other airports following the crash, and passengers are advised to check with their airlines for the latest updates.
3:20 p.m. Update: San Francisco General Hospital announced it has ten critically injured patients from the crash with injuries including burns and fractures. Some are in operating rooms; some are in intensive care units. The hospital says it will be treating from 20-30 patients among approximately 75 injured in total.
3:08 p.m. Update: @flySFO: 2 runways will open shortly. Pls check with your airline for arrival and departure info. #sfo
3:04 p.m. Update: San Francisco General Hospital confirms 10 from Asiana Airline accident are being treated -- six female, four male from 20 to 40 years old. Eight are adults, two are children. All critical.
1:59 p.m. Update: Various media reports indicate some deaths and 61 injured in the crash of a Boeing 777 airline at San Francisco International Airport this morning. The reports quoted a dispatcher for the San Francisco Fire Department. The San Francisco Fire Department transported 13 of the injured to hospitals while the San Mateo County Fire Department carried away 48 people for treatment, the dispatcher said.
1:34 p.m. Update: Approximately 12 passengers have been taken to local hospitals, including San Francisco General, according to a dispatcher for the San Francisco Fire Department. There is no indication of any deaths during the crash, and there is no indication why Flight 214 crashed.
1:32 p.m. Update: All flights at SFO are currently suspended. Some flights diverted to other airport, according to SFO officials.
Asiana 214 traffic with SFO Tower, July 6, 2013 from Martyn Williams 6.
Original Post
An Asiana Airlines 777 has crashed at San Francisco International Airport. It's not immediately known how many casualties are involved, though televised pictures and images posted online show many survivors exiting the plane or standing outside the damaged aircraft afterward. Thick smoke rose from the crash site on an airport runway, but the fire was quickly extinguished.
Aerial pictures from KTVU-Channel 2 show a badly damaged fuselage and severe fire damage in the front two-thirds of the plane. The tail was ripped off, though the wings remained attached after impact. There's no indication yet of what cause the crash. The airport was closed after the crash and incoming flights diverted to Oakland, San Jose and elsewhere.
According to televised accounts and video from the scene, the tail section of the plane, en route from Seoul, South Korea, hit the ground first short of the runway. It struck with such force that most of it broke off. The plane continued to slide down the runway before coming to rest. Other images showed a part of the plane's landing gear that had been torn off.
According to the Wall Street Journal, pilots who saw the crash reported the plane cartwheeled after impact. David Eun, a man who identified himself as a passenger on the plane, reported via Twitter that "most everyone" on the plane "seems fine."
Here's a video from inside one of the terminals at SFO that shows the aftermath:
Here's the latest urgent report from the Associated Press:
TERRY COLLINS, Associated Press
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — An Asiana Airlines flight from Seoul, South Korea, crashed while landing at San Francisco International Airport on Saturday, forcing passengers to jump down the emergency inflatable slides to safety. It was not immediately known whether there were any injuries.
Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Laura Brown said Flight 214 crashed while landing on runway 28 left at 11:26 PDT.
A video clip posted to YouTube showed smoke coming from a jet on the tarmac. Passengers could be seen jumping down the emergency slides.
Television footage showed the top of the fuselage was burned away and the entire tail was gone. One engine appeared to have broken away. Pieces of the tail were strewn about the runway. Emergency responders could be seen walking inside the burned-out wreckage.
Stephanie Turner saw the plane going down and the rescue slides deploy, but returned to her hotel room before seeing any passengers get off the jet, she told ABC News. Turner said when she first saw the flight she noticed right away that the angle of its approach seemed strange.
- Boeing 777 Crashes At San Francisco Airport (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
"It didn't manage to straighten out before hitting the runway," she said. "So the tail of the plane hit the runway, and it cartwheeled and spun and the tail broke off ... I mean we were sure that we had just seen a lot of people die. It was awful.
"And it looked like the plane had completely broken apart," she said. "There were flames and smoke just billowing."
A call to the airline seeking comment wasn't immediately returned.
The National Transportation Safety Board said it was sending a team of investigators to San Francisco to probe the crash. NTSB spokeswoman Kelly Nantel said Saturday that NTSB Chairman Deborah Hersman would head the team.
Asiana is a South Korean airline, second in size to national carrier Korean Air. It has recently tried to expand its presence in the United States, and joined the oneWorld alliance, anchored by American Airlines and British Airways.
The 777-200 is a long-range plane from Boeing. The twin-engine aircraft is one of the world's most popular long-distance planes, often used for flights of 12 hours or more, from one continent to another. The airline's website says its 777s can carry between 246 to 300 passengers.
The flight was 10 hours and 23 minutes, according to FlightAware, a flight tracking service. The aircraft is configured to seat 295 passengers, it said.
The last time a large U.S. airline lost a plane in a fatal crash was an American Airlines Airbus A300 taking off from John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York in 2001.
Smaller airlines have had crashes since then. The last fatal U.S. crash was a Continental Express flight operated by Colgan Air, which crashed into a house near Buffalo, N.Y. on Feb. 12, 2009. The crash killed all 49 people on board and one man in a house.
