VIDEO SF TV station KTVU misidentifies Asiana crash pilots due to insensitive prank

San Francisco television station KTVU fell victim to a heartless prank this week as they erroneously announced the names of the pilots of Asiana Flight 214 that crashed on Saturday as Captain Sum Ting Wong, Wi Tu Lo, Ho Lee Fuk and Bang Ding Ow. Amazingly, the station had verified the list of names with the National Transportation Safety Board before airing!

Here is the clip:

Here’s the transcript:

We have new information now, also on the plane crash. KTVU has just learned the names of the four pilots who were on board the flight.

They are Captain Sum Ting Wong, Wi Tu Lo, Ho Lee Fuk and Bang Ding Ow. The NTSB has confirmed these are the names of the pilots on board Flight 214 when it crashed.

We are working to determine exactly what role each of them played during the landing.

The station later realized their mistake and announced, “Earlier in the newscast we gave some names of pilots involved in the Asiana Airlines crash. These names were not accurate despite an NTSB official in Washington confirming them late this morning. We apologize for the error.”

“Nothing is more important to us than having the highest level of accuracy and integrity, and we are reviewing our procedures to ensure this type of error does not happen again,” Tom Raponi, KTVU/KICU vice president and general manager, later said in a statement.

The National Transportation Safety Board later issued a statement apologizing for their error, bla,ing the incident on a summer intern that “acted outside the scope of his authority” and “erroneously confirmed” the names to the station.

Here is the full NTSB statement on the erroneous Asiana pilots names:

NTSB statement on erroneous confirmation of crew names
July 12

The National Transportation Safety Board apologizes for inaccurate and offensive names that were mistakenly confirmed as those of the pilots of Asiana flight 214, which crashed at San Francisco International Airport on July 6.

Earlier today, in response to an inquiry from a media outlet, a summer intern acted outside the scope of his authority when he erroneously confirmed the names of the flight crew on the aircraft.

The NTSB does not release or confirm the names of crewmembers or people involved in transportation accidents to the media. We work hard to ensure that only appropriate factual information regarding an investigation is released and deeply regret today’s incident.

Appropriate actions will be taken to ensure that such a serious error is not repeated.