Alaska air taxi crash kills 10

WASHINGTON/ SAN FRANCISCO: Ten people were killed when an air taxi airplane crashed Sunday at the airport in the US city of Soldotna, in the state of Alaska, city police said.
The National Transportation Safety Board said late Sunday on its Twitter feed that it has sent a team to investigate the crash.
Alaska local media said the plane was a De Havilland DHC-3 Otter aircraft operated by Rediske Air.
Clint Johnson, head of the NTSB’s office in nearby Anchorage, told local NBC network affiliate KTUU television that the plane with the pilot and nine passengers on board crashed early Sunday and then caught fire.
Johnson also told KTUU that the NTSB pulled back an investigator who was heading to San Francisco to help investigate the Asiana Airlines disaster to handle the Soldotna crash.
“Yes, we have launched another go-team to investigate the crash in Alaska,” the NTSB said in a Twitter message.
Meanwhile, investigators have determined that Asiana Airlines Flight 214 was traveling “significantly below” the target speed during its approach and that the crew tried to abort the landing just before it smashed onto the runway. What they don’t yet know is whether the pilot’s inexperience with the type of aircraft and at San Francisco’s airport played a role.
A day after the jetliner crash landed in San Francisco, killing two people and sending more than 180 to hospitals, officials said Sunday that the probe was also focusing on whether the airport or plane’s equipment also could have malfunctioned.
The South Korea government announced Monday that officials will inspect engines and landing equipment on all Boeing 777 planes owned by Asiana and Korean Air, the national carrier.
Also Sunday, San Mateo County Coroner Robert Foucrault said he was investigating whether one of the two teenage passengers killed actually survived the crash but was run over by a rescue vehicle rushing to aid victims fleeing the burning aircraft. Remarkably, 305 of 307 passengers and crew survived the crash and more than a third didn’t even require hospitalization. Only a small number were critically injured.
Investigators said that the weather was unusually fair for foggy San Francisco. The winds were mild, too. During the descent, with their throttles set to idle, the pilots never discussed having any problems with the plane or its positioning until it was too late.
Seven seconds before the Boeing 777 struck down, a member of the flight crew made a call to increase the jet’s lagging speed, National Transportation Safety Board chief Deborah Hersman said at a briefing based on the plane’s cockpit and flight data recorders. Three seconds later came a warning that the plane was about to stall.
Two-and-a-half seconds later, the crew attempted to abort the landing and go back up for another try. The air traffic controller guiding the plane heard the crash that followed almost instantly, Hersman said.