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July 7, 2013 -- Updated 1410 GMT (2210 HKT)

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Crash survivor: 'I don't see any runway, just water'

Passengers describe being too low too soon just moments before an Asiana Airlines flight crashed at San Francisco airport killing two teenagers. Hundreds escaped. FULL STORY

• Latest updates on investigation
• Photos   | Plane loses tail  
• Reaction from Seoul, S. Korea  
• Asiana Airlines safety record

Seconds before crash, passengers knew they were too low

By Holly Yan and Greg Botelho, CNN

July 7, 2013 -- Updated 1207 GMT (2007 HKT)

Fire crews attempt to quench the blaze after an Asiana Airlines Boeing 777, inbound from Seoul, South Korea, crashed on landing at San Francisco International Airport on Saturday, July 6.

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Plane crash-lands in San Francisco

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STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• NEW: The flight recorders have been found, the NTSB says
• Asiana identifies the two 16-year-old girls killed in the crash
• 182 people were hospitalized, while 123 were uninjured
• Passengers say the plane's rear struck the edge of the runway

  Flight data recorders recovered from Asiana crash

  By Thom Patterson, CNN

  July 7, 2013 -- Updated 1427 GMT (2227 HKT)
  

  Details of pilot flying at time of crash

  STORY HIGHLIGHTS

  • Asiana Airlines Flight 214 data recorders were recovered and sent to Washington
  • Boeing 777 crashed Saturday at San Francisco airport, killing two teen passengers
  • NTSB: "Stabilized approaches have long been a safety concern"
  (CNN) -- Investigators gathered critical clues in San Francisco on Sunday in hopes of solving the mystery surrounding the deadly crash landing of Asiana Airlines Flight 214.
  
  Both flight data recorders have been recovered, the National Transportation Safety Board said, from wreckage left by Saturday's tragedy that left two 16-year-old passengers dead.
  Survivors and witnesses reported the 7-year-old Boeing 777 appeared to be flying too low as it approached the end of a runway near the bay.
  "Stabilized approaches have long been a safety concern for the aviation community," NTSB Chairman Deborah Hersman told CNN on Sunday, saying they represent a significant threat. "We see a lot of runway crashes."
  "We want to understand what was going on with this crew so we can learn from it," Hersman said.
  Passengers recount moment of crash
  Passengers describe harrowing crash
  'The wheels ... were too low, too soon'
  Hersman said her team hopes to interview the pilots in the coming days.
  Internal damage to the plane is "really striking," she said, and officials are thankful there weren't more deaths.
  Nothing, including pilot error, has been ruled out as a possible cause of the crash, investigators said. The recorders have already arrived at an NTSB lab in Washington for analysis.
  Teen girls Ye Mengyuan and Wang Linjia, both Chinese nationals, were killed in the crash, Asiana Airlines said Sunday. There were 291 passengers and 16 crew members aboard the two-engine jet, which had flown a 10-hour direct flight from Seoul, South Korea.
  "The tail of the Asiana flight hit the runway and the aircraft veered to the left out of the runway," said Choi Jeong-ho, head of South Korea's Aviation Policy Bureau.
  Related: Passengers knew they were too low
  Expert: The plane 'should never have been close to the seawall'
  Airport technology called the Instrument Landing System -- or ILS -- which normally would have helped pilots correctly approach the runway -- were not operating at the time, officials have said.
  "There are a lot of systems that help support pilots" as they fly into busy airports, Hersman said. Some of these systems alert the pilots. "A lot of this is not necessarily about the plane telling them" that something may be wrong, she said. "It's also about the pilot's recognition of the circumstances and what's going on. So for them to be able to assess what's happening and make the right inputs to make sure they're in a safe situation -- that's what we expect from pilots."
  San Francisco Fire Chief Joanne Hayes-White said that when crews arrived, "some of the passengers (were) coming out of the water. But the plane was certainly not in the water."
  Survivors reported hearing no warning from the cockpit before the plane slammed onto the edge of the runway, severing the plane's tail and sending the fuselage spinning on its belly. The crash landing blew a fireball and clouds of smoke into the sky.
  Passengers scrambled to exit a crash scene that one survivor described as "surreal."
  Related: Asiana Airlines crash: At a glance
  Evidence in the investigation will include data that show what action the pilots took during the approach to the airport. The pilot operating the aircraft was a veteran who had been flying for Asiana since 1996, the airline said.
  On the runway, medics found the bodies of the two Chinese teens lying next to burning wreckage. Remarkably, the other 305 people on the plane survived. Passengers included 70 Chinese students and teachers who were headed to summer camp in the United States, China's state-run Xinhua news agency reported.
  "We're lucky there hasn't been a greater loss of life," Hayes-White said. When rescuers arrived, they found some passengers coming out of the water, she said.
  "There was a fire on the plane, so the assumption might be that they went near the water's edge, which is very shallow, to maybe douse themselves with water," Hayes-White said.
  While 182 of them were taken to hospitals with injuries ranging from spinal fractures to bruises, another 123 managed to escape unharmed.
  Related: Why the crash was survivable
  Some jumped out or slid down emergency chutes with luggage in hand.
  South Korean investigators will work alongside U.S. investigators. Choi said it could take up to two years to learn exactly what caused the crash. Asiana CEO and President Yoon Young-doo said there was no engine failure, to his knowledge. "The company will conduct an accurate analysis on the cause of this accident and take strong countermeasures for safe operation in the future with the lesson learned from this accident," Yoon said.
  CNN's Faith Karimi and Aaron Cooper contributed to this report.
  
  
  
  
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