Pilots hit out at crash investigators

Pilots have reacted with anger at details from the onboard recorders from Asiana Flight 214 being released to the media, claiming crash investigators appear to be pointing a finger at the pilot of the South Korean jet which crashed on landing at San Francisco airport, killing two passengers.

The Air Line Pilots Association released a statement saying it was "stunned by the amount of detailed operational data from on-board recorders released by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) this soon into the investigation".

It added: "It is imperative that safety investigators refrain from prematurely releasing the information from on-board recording devices.

"We have seen in the past that publicising this data before all of it can be collected and analysed leads to erroneous conclusions that can actually interfere with the investigative process."

So far, crash investigators have revealed that the pilot of the Boeing 777, Lee Kang-Koo, was in training on the aircraft, had only 43 hours experience on that particular type, and was landing at San Francisco’s airport for the first time.

Lee Jung-Min, his training captain, had only been certified as a training supervisor less than a month before the crash.

The NTSB also revealed to the media that the plane’s cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder indicated that there were no signs of trouble until seven seconds before impact, when the crew tried to accelerate.

Chairwoman of the US National Transportation Safety Board Deborah Hersman said a stall warning, in which the cockpit controls begin to shake, activated four seconds before impact, and the crew tried to abort the landing 1.5 seconds before crashing.

She also said the evacuation was delayed because the pilots initially said passengers should stay put.

This meant the evacuation began 90 seconds after the 777 skidded to a halt, and only after one of the cabin crew spotted fire outside, she said.

"It seems a little unusual that the crew would not announce an order to evacuate after a plane crash," she told a press conference yesterday. "We don’t know what the pilots were thinking."

Hersman said the pilot later told investigators he was blinded by a light at about 500ft, which would have been about 34 seconds before impact.

She said investigators had not ruled out that the flash might have been caused by a laser.

But ALPA said it was wrong to tell the media these pieces of information at this early stage.

"Releasing pieces of the conversation out of context encourages wild speculation, as we have already seen in the media, about causes of the accident before all the facts are known, before investigators have the ability to determine why the events occurred, and in this case before the flight crew had even been interviewed…and creates the impression that the NTSB has already determined probable cause even before the investigation has started," said ALPA.

The pilots implored that information not be "sensationalised by the media for the purpose of a few headlines".

Only last month, Asiana Airlines was named as one of the world’s safest airlines by the ratings website airlineratings.com, despite the fact it has suffered two other fatal crashes in its 25-year history.

The website, run by Australian aviation editor and author Geoffrey Thomas, said it had "forensically" researched airlines over the last two years. See his further comment below.