Josh Edelson / AFP - Getty Images
A Boeing 777 operated by Asiana Airlines crash landed at SFO.
By NBC News' Julie Yoon and F. Brinley Bruton
Engine failure was probably not the cause of Saturday?s Asiana Airlines crash at?San Francisco International Airport that left two teens dead and injured some 180 passengers, the airline?s president said.
?We think there was no engine defect,? Young-doo Yoon said at a press conference in Seoul on Sunday. ?
The fiery crash landing of a Korean jetliner at the San Francisco International Airport late Saturday morning has left at least two people dead, and up to 70 injured, according to NBC Bay Area station KNTV. Hospitals say some of the injured are critical. NBC's Lester Holt reports.
The two who were killed in the?Boeing 777 jetliner crash?? Chinese women born in 1996 and 1997 ? were not named, Yoon added. One child and five adults remained in critical conditions, NBC Bay Area reported earlier.
The ages of the those injured ranged from 20 to 76 years old. ?Joanne Hayes-White, the San Francisco fire chief, said there were 307 people on board the Asiana Airlines Flight 214 ? 291 passengers and 16 crew -- and all had been accounted for.?
Authorities said 182 people were taken to one of nine Bay Area hospitals, including 49 with serious injuries. Hospitals reported that the injuries included burns and fractures.
?We are very sorry for the pain to the families and passengers,? Asiana?s Yoon said. ?The airline would do its best to help families of victims and passengers who were traveling to the United States, he added.?
Passenger Benjamin Levy said he heard screams after the crash landing, and for a few moments, confusion filled the cabin .
"It was surreal," he Levy told on Saturday, shortly after being taken by ambulance from San Francisco International Airport. ?"A lot of people screaming and not really believing what has happening to them. I wasn?t believing it either."
Asiana Airlines Flight 214 crash survivor Benjamin Levy describes to NBC Bay Area affiliate KNTV what it felt like during the aircraft's crash landing. He said he heard "a lot of people screaming, not really believing what was happening to them" and witnessed people with what looked like head and rib injuries.
Among those who made it to safety were 34 Chinese high school students and a teacher, on their way to summer camp in the United States, according to Chinese state television.
The crash ? the first involving a jumbo jet in the United States in more than a decade ? happened at 11:27 a.m. local time. It left a field of debris down the runway, beginning at the seawall that divides the runway from San Francisco Bay. Pieces of the tail could be seen among the wreckage.
As the plane approached the runway from the waters of San Francisco Bay, travelers in the terminals and others eyewitnesses could see that the aircraft was swaying unusually from side to side and that at one point the tail seemed to hit the ground before breaking off.
Despite the deaths and scores of injuries -- many of them serious -- San Francisco Mayor Edwin Lee said at a Saturday evening news conference that "This could have been much worse."
San Francisco Mayor Edwin Lee thanks the first responders of the Asiana Airlines crash and says "this could have been much worse."
Federal investigators said on Saturday that it was too early to determine a cause. A representative of the National Transportation Safety Board arrived on scene late Saturday and took control of the investigation.
Sources who spoke with NBC News said the pilot did not make a distress call before landing. The plane crashed in favorable weather ? partly cloudy skies and light wind.
Stefanie Turner, a witness, told MSNBC that she saw the plane clip the runway with its tail, then come to rest with flames and smoke billowing from the fuselage.
?The tail was too low. Instead of coming in flat it was coming in at, I would say, maybe a 45-degree angle, with the tail far too low,? she said.
?It really went through quite a few acrobatics on the runway.?
The jet carried 141 Chinese, 77 Koreans, 61 Americans, three passengers from India, one each from Japan and Vietnam and seven whose nationalities were unknown, the airline said. A situation room was set up in Beijing to provide information and help to the families of Chinese passengers, Yoon said.
NBC News'?Erin McClam, Emma Ong, Daniel Arkin,?Julie Yoo, Le Li, Jay Blackman, Jonathan Dienst, Richard Esposito, Tracy Jarrett and Kristen Welker contributed to this report. The Associated Press also contributed.
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This story was originally published on Sun Jul 7, 2013 4:27 AM EDT
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