An intern at the National Transportation Safety Board confirmed to a Bay Area television station fake, racially insensitive names of the pilots flying the ill-fated Asiana Airlines Flight 214.
The segment on Friday at noon that referred to two of the pilots as "Captain Sum Ting Wong," and "Wi Tu Lo," has gone viral and drawn heavy criticism on the Internet.
Late Friday, the NTSB apologized for the incident. "Earlier today, in response to an inquiry from a media outlet, a summer intern acted outside the scope of his authority when he erroneously confirmed the names of the flight crew on the aircraft," the NTSB said in a statement.
"The NTSB does not release or confirm the names of crew members or people involved in transportation accidents to the media. We work hard to ensure that only appropriate factual information regarding an investigation is released and deeply regret today's incident. Appropriate actions will be taken to ensure that such a serious error is not repeated," the statement added.
It remains unclear how the station got the names in the first place.
The television station called the NTSB to verify the content and someone without authority but not apprising the station of that lack of authority, confirmed the names.
Cowperson
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The television station called the NTSB to verify the content and someone without authority but not apprising the station of that lack of authority, confirmed the names.
Cowperson
Umm....the 'somehow' relates to this part of the article.
Quote:
"The NTSB does not release or confirm the names of crew members or people involved in transportation accidents to the media. We work hard to ensure that only appropriate factual information regarding an investigation is released and deeply regret today's incident. Appropriate actions will be taken to ensure that such a serious error is not repeated," the statement added.
It remains unclear how the station got the names in the first place.
The television station called the NTSB to verify the content and someone without authority but not apprising the station of that lack of authority, confirmed the names.
Cowperson
Ffs. This whole thing is a work. These guys names aren't 'something's wrong' and 'we're too low'. It's not an intern speaking out of school. The entire story must be bogus.
Last edited by Free Ben Hur!; 07-12-2013 at 07:58 PM.
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Ffs. This whole thing is a work. These guys names aren't 'something's wrong' and 'we're too low'. It's not an intern speaking out of school. The entire story must be bogus.
Anyone who's listened to some of the prank calls on Howard Stern knows how bad these stations are at checking sources. They're all in a rush to be first with the story, and get a scoop. Easy pickings for pranksters.
Instead of worrying about the fact that their pilots might not be able to fly their airplanes, Asiana wants to sue both the TV station and the NTSB for the name prank.
Instead of worrying about the fact that their pilots might not be able to fly their airplanes, Asiana wants to sue both the TV station and the NTSB for the name prank.
I just want to post this again because there's something very very important you hear the pilots say at the very start of the video. "Flaps 30, Vref 136." And the other pilot acknowledges "136 target 141". Great communication, and both pilots are on the same page... they plan to have the airplane cross the threshold of the runway at 136 knots. From what I understand, the "target 141" is to account for a potential +/- 5 knots of error in the autothrottle. I'm just speculating, but maybe this was the very moment where there was a breakdown on OZ 214.
This is an Air Canada 777 and obviously other airlines will have different procedures.... but if they are doing it in any way that there's less communication than in this video, then I think they should adopt Air Canada's procedure.
I'm shocked that there's DVD's like that for sale. I mean it's gotta be hours of watching the pilots do basically nothing?
I've got the one that clip is from. 4+ hours well spent, oddly enough... I'll do my best to give a quick summary. The first 45 is spent with the dispatcher and you see the insane amount of work that goes into planning a 15+ hour flight that goes almost right over the north pole. He has to look at airspace restrictions, the jetstream, and a tons of other factors. They show the pilots reviewing the flight plan, and whether or not they want to make any changes.
Then you see most of the taxi and the takeoff in its entirety, with the guys explaining stuff along the way. Once in cruise, each the pilots (2 relief pilots as well) give a bio of their career, who they've flown for, etc. As they near the north pole, they show the difficulties of HF radio comms with people in Iceland. Landing in its entirety, some beauty shots of Hong Kong, then the return leg. On the way back you get a bio of the executive class purser, and he shows all the meals/desserts/drinks for the exec class cabin. More bios and explaining stuff. Landing in Toronto.
To sum up... they're far from nothing! For avgeeks, these DVD's are a godsend.
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For avgeeks, these DVD's are a godsend.
