A Boeing 777 has crashed while attempting to land at San Francisco International Airport this afternoon. According to KTVU, at around 11:30 am (PST) the plane had its landing gear down and was about to touch down when the tail of the plane fell off.
According to a CNN eyewitness, the plane didn’t appear to be in distress when coming in for approach. There were no emergency responders on the runway and appeared it was making a beautiful landing. When the nose of the plane pitched up and the rear wheels touched the runway the plane began to spin around on its axis down the runway. The front landing gear reportedly never touched the runway during landing.
Emergency slides were put into place and there are reports of survivors. The plane is believed to have landed short of the runway and weather is not considered to be a factor.
The plane has reportedly been identified as Asiana Flight 214 from Seoul, S. Korea to San Francisco. The plane was delivered to the airline in 2006. An estimated 246 to 300 passengers could have been onboard the flight.
SFO has been closed to all incoming and departing flights.
3:29pm (CST): Boeing has tweeted a statement saying, “Our thoughts are with everyone affected by today’s incident at SFO. We stand ready to assist the NTSB.”
More details to come…
