SAN FRANCISCO, CA – We all go through training for things before we feel comfortable using them, like driving or riding a bike. Sadly, it looks like the pilot for the Asiana Airlines flight that crashed in San Francisco over the weekend needed a little more training time, too.
The South Korean airline says the pilot, Lee Kang-kook was still in training for the Boeing 777. The airline says he only had 43 hours of experience flying the jet. They also confirmed that this was his first time attempting to land one.
But the pilot wasn’t completely inexperienced. He had been a pilot since 1994 and was very experienced with other types of planes like the Boeing 747s, 737s, and A320s. But that’s probably no comfort to the 291 passengers and 16 crew members that were onboard that flight. Unfortunately, two people were killed with dozens of others hurt, some critically.
The National Transportation Safety Board is also now investigating the other pilot’s that were on-board. Yes, there was more than one. They want to outline the events all leading up to the crash.
Reports say that statistically, 2012 was the safest year in terms of aviation accidents around the globe since 1945. But to everyone on-board that plane, we’re sure those statistics don’t mean much.
