Asiana - Oppdatering. Laserlys? Neppe......Ville vært på CVR

Asiana 214: Plane evacuated 90 seconds after crash

Deborah Hersman: "Unusual not to announce an order to evacuate"

The evacuation of Asiana flight 214, which crash landed on Saturday in San Francisco, was delayed because the pilots initially said passengers should stay put, a safety official has said.

The evacuation began 90 seconds after the Boeing 777 skidded to a stop - and only after a flight attendant spotted fire outside, the official said.

She called the failure to order the evacuation immediately "unusual".

The crash killed two passengers and injured about 180.

At a press conference on Wednesday, National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) Chairman Deborah Hersman said the pilots were in contact with air traffic controllers in the seconds after the plane crashed, and told flight attendants not to order passengers to evacuate.

"It seems a little unusual that the crew would not announce an order to evacuate after a plane crash," Ms Hersman said.

"We don't know what the pilots were thinking."

Ms Hersman also confirmed some of the evacuation slides had inflated inside the aircraft as it bounced along the ground, injuring a flight attendant and possibly hindering passengers' escape.

It has been revealed that the pilot at the controls when the plane crashed was landing a Boeing 777 at San Francisco's airport for the first time, while the instructor pilot beside him was in that role also for the first time.
Laser flash?
Ms Hersman said the pilot who landed the plane later told investigators he was blinded by a light at about 500ft (150m) - which would have been about 34 seconds before impact and the point when the Boeing began to slow down.

US investigators have interviewed the pilots and half of the flight attendants on the crashed plane

The possibility that the flash was caused by a laser was not being ruled out, Ms Hersman added.

Aside from the pilot's relative inexperience in a Boeing 777, it has also emerged that the instructor pilot reported noticing seconds before the crash that the auto-throttle was not maintaining the correct airspeed.

US investigators are continuing to review flight data and video footage, and have interviewed all four pilots and half of the flight attendants.

The additional attendants remain in hospital, among them three who were ejected from the rear of the aircraft when the tail ripped off on impact.

As Asiana 214, bound from Incheon in South Korea, approached San Francisco after its 11-hour journey across the Pacific Ocean, three out of four pilots aboard were in the cockpit.