SAN FRANCISCO—The Asiana Airlines jet that crashed while landing at San Francisco International Airport, killing two Chinese teenagers and injuring 182 others, was descending at a dangerously slow speed and pilots apparently ran out of time to correct their approach, investigators said Sunday. While stopping short of pinpointing pilot error as the likely cause of the fiery crash Saturday, National Transportation Safety Board Chairman Deborah Hersman's comments indicated investigators were focused primarily on why the cockpit crew allowed speed to decay to such an extent—and failed to take decisive action until the Boeing 777 was less than two seconds from impact. Witnesses said the plane on Saturday appeared to be too low as it approached the runway, hit the ground before the runway started and the impact sheared off part of the tail of the plane and possibly landing gear as well. But she said there was no evidence of problems with the flight or the landing until 7 seconds before impact, when the crew tried to increase the plane's speed and the plane responded normally. Co-pilot Lee Jeong-min, who has 3,220 hours of flying experience with the Boeing 777 and a total of 12,387 hours of flying experience, was helping Lee Kang-kook in the landing, the spokeswoman said.
– The pilot in Saturday's plane crash in San Francisco was a veteran with almost 10,000 hours of flying experience—but just 43 of them were in a Boeing 777 and the disaster that killed two people and injured 182 others was his first attempt to land that type of aircraft at the site. Asiana Airlines pilot Lee Kang-kook was still in training for the jet and was being assisted by a co-pilot with more than 3,000 hours of flight experience with the 777, Reuters reports. National Transportation Safety Board investigators haven't settled on pilot error as the cause of the crash but the investigation is focusing on why the plane came in to land at "significantly below" the right speed and why the crew didn't try to abort the landing until 1.5 seconds before the crash, the Wall Street Journal reports. The airline's chief executive says he does not believe the crash—the first fatal one involving a 777—was caused by mechanical failure.