The crash of Asiana Flight 214, a Boeing 777-28EER (HL7742) at San Francisco International Airport (SFO) took place on July 6th 2013. The flight originated at Incheon International Airport near Seoul, South Korea. On final approach to runway 28L the aircraft made contact with the water short of the runway. After that the aircraft made contact with the seawall at the end of the runway and shed its tail and landing gear. One engine and the landing gear were distributed along the path the plane took toward its final resting place. In the video the fuselage can be seen to spin 330 degrees counter-clockwise before coming to rest pointing toward the northwest. The footage was shared by the YouTube account What You Haven’t Seen.
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When the crash took place the flight crew was criticized for their slow reaction time in getting the passengers out of the jet. Survivors can be seen exiting from the ruptured fuselage near the tail before the escape slides are deployed on the port side of the fuselage. Once the slides are deployed passengers use them to exit the fuselage. A fire had broken out on the starboard side near the right engine, which prevented the use of the starboard side slides. Response from the emergency vehicles at SFO seems to take forever but the first responders reach the wreck about 2:25 after the crash first takes place. The fires seem to be out but roughly 15 minutes after the crash the airliner begins to burn fiercely.
Miraculously there were only three deaths from this crash. Two passengers died at the crash scene, and a third died in the hospital several days later. An additional 49 people were seriously injured out of 187 injured. One group of three flight attendants who were strapped in their takeoff and landing seats in the rear fuselage were injured when they were thrown onto runway 28L, still strapped in their seats, when the tail section broke off of the airliner near the end of the runway. This was the first crash involving fatalities of a Boeing 777 aircraft since entering service in 1995.
SFO was closed for five hours after the crash. Flights destined for San Francisco were diverted to Oakland, San Jose, Sacramento, Los Angeles, Portland, and Seattle–Tacoma. Runways 1L/19R and 1R/19L (perpendicular runways to the axis of the crash) were reopened at 1530 PDT. The runway next to 28L, Runway 10L/28R, remained closed for more than 24 hours so it could be cleared of debris from the crash. Runway 28L was reopened a week later after repairs were completed. Asiana ended up changing the route’s flight number to 212 after the incident. Asiana still flies the route today.
