Siste fra SFO

Plane crash at San Francisco airport, 2 dead
   

SAN FRANCISCO An Asiana Airlines flight from Seoul, South Korea, with more than 300 people aboard crashed while landing at San Francisco International Airport on Saturday, littering the runway with debris, and forcing passengers to jump down the emergency inflatable slides to safety.

San Francisco Fire Department told CBS News that two people were killed. At least 73 people have been taken to area hospitals for injuries, some critically.

San Francisco General said they have received 10 of the critically injured, including two children.

A spokesperson for San Francisco General said most, if not all, of the passengers taken to the hospital are Korean-speaking. We are working to get interpreters for them," she said, "but they are quite critically injured so there is not a lot of discussion with them at this time."

Early reports indicate that Asiana Airlines Flight 214 made a hard landing, with the tail of the plane striking the runway and breaking off.

The resulting fire sent black smoke billowing into the air, visible for miles.

"The plane started coming in at an odd angle, there was a huge bang and you could see the cloud of huge black smoke," Kate Belding, who was jogging near the airport at the time of the crash, told KPIX.

"It was a horrible thud," said Kelly Thompson, who observed the crash a hotel parking lot at the airport. She said the plane bounced, then slid on the runway.

Rescue vehicles were on the scene immediately afterwards, with fire trucks spraying a white fire retardant on the wreckage.

Spokesperson Lt. Cdr. Shawn Lansing told CBS News that the U.S. Coast Guard flew two people with burns from the triage center via helicopter to Stanford University Hospital. The severity of the burns is unknown.

The airport was closed for several hours, with flights diverted to Oakland, Sacramento, Los Angeles, San Jose and Seattle. At about 3:30 p.m. PT, the airport announced that two runways have reopened.

The National Transportation Safety Board said it was sending a team of investigators to San Francisco to probe the crash. NTSB spokeswoman Kelly Nantel said Saturday that NTSB Chairman Deborah Hersman would head the team.

Arnold Barnett, an aviation expert at MIT, told KCBS it was possible the plane could have experienced a power shortage that caused the pilot to lose control. He said a similar incident occurred involving a Boeing 777 at London's Heathrow Airport in 2008.

Asiana plane crash echoes '08 British Airways incident

David Eun, a Samsung executive who was on board the plane, posted a photo online showing passengers leaving the wreckage.

Asiana is a South Korean airline, second in size to national carrier Korean Air. It has recently tried to expand its presence in the United States, and joined the Star Alliance, which is anchored in the U.S. by United Airlines.

The 777-200 is a long-range plane from Boeing. The twin-engine aircraft is one of the world's most popular long-distance planes, often used for flights of 12 hours or more, from one continent to another. The airline's website says its 777s can carry between 246 to 300 passengers.

The last time a large U.S. airline lost a plane in a fatal crash was an American Airlines Airbus A300 taking off from JFK in 2001.

Smaller airlines have had crashes since then. The last fatal U.S. crash was a Continental Express flight operated by Colgan Air, which crashed into a house near Buffalo, N.Y. on Feb. 12, 2009. The crash killed all 49 people on board and one man in a house.