Crash airline Asiana sue over ‘racist’ TV report

THE airline whose plane crash-landed at San Francisco airport killing three people is to sue a TV station which broadcast hoax reports of the names of the flight crew on board.

The wrecked fuselage of Asiana Airlines flght 214 sits in a storage area at San Francisco International Airport. Picture: Getty

Asiana said in a statement that it will sue KTVU, a TV station in the San Francisco area, for damaging the airline’s reputation in the weekend report.

The station read a list of four false names, including “Sum Ting Wong”, claiming they were the names of the crew on the flight from Korea which crash-landed last Saturday. Footage of the gaffe has become a viral sensation online, with nearly 5.5 million people watching the clip on YouTube in the past two days.

KTVU have issued an apology, as has the the National Transportation Safety Board which released the erroneous names. Neither KTVU nor the NTSB have commented on where the false names initially came from.

Asiana spokeswoman Lee Hyomin said the airline is suing over serious damage to its reputation caused by the broadcast.

Investigations into the crash in both the US and South Korea continue.