BEIJING, July 10 (Xinhuanet) -- Saturday’s deadly plane crash in San Francisco left two Chinese teenagers dead and 183 people injured. As investigators continue to sift through the wreckage, to the surprise of many, it’s emerged that one of the Chinese victims may have died after being hit by a fire engine.
The chairperson of the National Transportation Safety Board says the investigation is incredibly detailed, with teams looking at everything from pilot training to plane performance to information from the flight data recorder, which captures 1,400 different measurements.
The NTSB believes more information, like how the two Chinese teens died will soon be known.
"I can tell you that the 2 fatalities were located in seats toward the rear of the aircraft. Again, this is an area of the aircraft that was structurally significantly damaged. And it’s an area where we are seeing a lot of the critical or serious injuries that occurred as well," Deborah Hersman, Chairman of US National Transportation Safety Board, said.
San Francisco fire officials say one of the teens may have been hit and killed by their equipment.
Dale Carnes, San Francisco Fire Dept., said, "It became aware to one of our fire attack battalion chiefs, that one of the two fatalities might have been contacted by our apparatus at an unknown point during the incident."
That has now become a formal investigation.
But firefighters and police also pointed out the extreme conditions first responders faced when trying to rescue trapped passengers thick pillars of smoke, leaking jet fuel and exits blocked by luggage from overhead bins.
Shorthanded firefighters also heaped praise on this police officer, Jim Cunningham, for rushing aboard the plane without wearing any special protection.
"I went to officer Cunningham, you think the airplanes cleared, you think there’s any more passengers? You think we got them all out? He says I think so, hold on. And he goes running back in," Lt. Gaetano Caltagirone, San Francisco Police Dept., said.
Officers say it’s unlike anything they’ve been through before and that none of them had time to think of themselves.
By CCTV correspondent Mark Niu
(Source: CNTV.cn)
