Fire Truck Possibly Ran Over Airplane Crash Victim

[Akulahawk]

The wings are still apparently attached to the fuselage pretty well, considering, still even exhibit dihedral. My goof.

Don't feel too bad... they'll be snapped off during runway cleanup. Might take a bit to snap them though. They're pretty darned strong!

 

[MMiz]

It turns out the girl was alive before being killed by the fire truck.

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-ln-asiana-girl-fire-truck-20130719,0,3168780.story

 

[mycrofft]

Oh, excremento. Well, let the investigation dictate the lessons to be learned.

I know personally it can be tempting to "open 'er up" on a runway with the scene in sight, but there are reasons all runway/taxiway movements are controlled. I don't know what happened at SFO, just saying any incident is an opportunity to review or learn airport ops. (The casualty could also be an ambulance or fire truck given the right circumstances and the wrong moves).

 

[abckidsmom]

I'm going to go on record as saying that this is an extremely unfortunate accident, and given the scene when they pulled up, totally defensible.

My prayers are with the fire crews that responded, and I hope their anonymity is maintained. What a difficult situation for everyone involved.

 

[mycrofft]

I'm going to go on record as saying that this is an extremely unfortunate accident, and given the scene when they pulled up, totally defensible.

My prayers are with the fire crews that responded, and I hope their anonymity is maintained. What a difficult situation for everyone involved.

The Chinese government has taken this opportunity to demand answers etc. More difficult than we know, I fear. I wonder if they are demanding the South Koreans "reveal" why the pilot and trainer were such a poor pairing? This could lead to some real political haygathering by the PRC, unfortunately.

 

[Clipper1]

The Chinese government has taken this opportunity to demand answers etc. More difficult than we know, I fear. I wonder if they are demanding the South Koreans "reveal" why the pilot and trainer were such a poor pairing? This could lead to some real political haygathering by the PRC, unfortunately.

Let's not get carried away to where we forget the tragic death of a 16 y/o girl. Nor should excuses be made to gloss over something that went horribly wrong which no one could have imagined happening despite hours of training. The FFs were the ones who stepped up initially. The chief is also meeting with the family in person. No one could possibly imagine what this family is going through hearing what their daughter's last few minutes of life involved. Any parent would want answers. I applaud the FD for being so up front regardless of the.international scrutiny. There will hopefully be lessons learned so this little girl's death is remembered but not to punish or be a political pawn.

 

[DPM]

Sad news. The San Mateo county coroner has ruled that Ye Meng Yuan was in fact struck and killed by a rescue vehicle.

Officials said she died of multiple blunt injuries that are consistent with being run over by a motor vehicle

More here

 

[DrParasite]

two important sentences from the article:

As the plane burned, the 16-year-old Chinese student was buried by the firefighting foam rescue workers were spraying to douse the flames.

And in the chaotic moments that followed — flames devouring the fuselage, those aboard escaping by emergency slides, flight attendants frantically cutting away seat belts to free passengers — a fire truck ran over Yuan, killing her.

Truely a tragedy, and one any of us could have made, given the same circumstances

 

[DrParasite]

Asiana plane crash: Firefighter not charged in death

SAN FRANCISCO (KABC) -- A firefighter who ran over and killed an Asiana Airlines crash survivor at San Francisco International Airport will not be charged with a crime, prosecutors said on Friday.

Chinese student Ye Mengyuan, 16, survived the July 6 crash, only to be run over by a fire truck while she was covered in firefighting foam, authorities said.

Prosecutors said on Friday that their investigation determined it was a "tragic accident," and that the firefighter driving the truck broke no laws.

read the rest here: http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?id=9292452

 

[EMT B]

pretty sure you aren't supposed to break the foam seal...

 

[p1l0t]

The wings usually shear off and tear apart, and any fuel in them atomizes into a fireball. These broke off like someone snapped them. Odd physics, the pane must have basically slammed down onto the runway like a pancake, as compared to a regular landing rollout.

Overhead bins are near the emergency oxygen generators which are exothermic, no?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_oxygen_generator

Ceiling burning through is not uncommon. but seeing that without other fire is odd.

PS: ever slide down an emergency slide? They can be pretty rough-textured. THat's why you keep your arms crossed, to avoid friction burns. Still, double-tough to run up one.

The wings are still apparently attached to the fuselage pretty well, considering, still even exhibit dihedral. My goof.

Well the wings aside your pretty much on the money. The jet hit the ground tail first and then the rest slammed down hard enough to shear the main gears right off. I don't know the exact stall speed of the 777 but if their target approach speed (usually 1.2 times stall) was 137kts then the stall speed is probably around 120kts. The lowest recorded speed by ATC's (Air Traffic Control) radar was 103kts. The low speed and the really high AOA (angle of attack) suggests they may have stalled. This is because the airspeed of a jet is determined by it's AOA regardless of power. (Power determines whether you're climbing out or descending at that speed but only while making lift). So if they were pitched up that high they probably had airflow separation over the wings. They weren't flying, they were falling. I don't think the NTSB has released a full report yet but between the low speed, high AOA (nose-up attitude), and I believe the stick shaker even went off (simulated buffeting a smaller airplane would feel before stall)... It's pretty safe to speculate they hit the ground full stall (real hard). Basically in free fall albeit with a good amount of drag. Luckily for the passengers after the long ten hour flight there wasn't much fuel left in the tanks. The interviews with the pilots suggested they were waiting for the auto-throttles to kick in when they weren't activated and by the time they tried to manually add power they were already too slow and sinking way too fast to recover before hitting the sea wall before the runway.

[BTW by stall I mean aerodynamic stall not engine stall just to clarify for non-aviation enthusiasts]