Update: The National Transportation Safety Board late Friday issued its own apology for “inaccurate and offensive names that were mistakenly
confirmed” to KTVU Channel 2 as those of the pilots of Asiana flight 214, which crashed at San Francisco International Airport on Saturday.
The statement said that an NTSB summer intern, in response to the station’s inquiry, “acted outside the scope of his authority when he erroneously confirmed the names of the flight crew on the aircraft.”
However, in a subsequent phone interview with the SFGate’s Jeff Elder, NTSB spokeswoman Kelly Nantel made clear that the names “originated at the media outlet” and that the intern — unaware of the offensive names — was “acting in good faith and trying to be helpful” by confirming names he didn’t know.
“The NTSB does not release or confirm the names of crew members or people involved in transportation accidents to the media,” Nantel said.
Original blog post follows: —
KTVU Channel 2 is apologizing for an on-air gaffe that the station — or viewers – won’t soon forget.
During the noon newscast Friday, co-anchor Tori Campbell, announced that “KTVU has just learned the names of the four pilots who were on board” Asiana flight 214 when it crashed at San Francisco International Airport on Saturday.
She then read from a teleprompter while a TV graphic displayed four fake names that clearly were someone’s idea of a joke.
The first name — “Captain Sum Ting Wong” — should have been a give-away that something really was wrong. But Campbell kept reading… “Wi Tu Lo, Ho Lee Fuk, Bang Ding Ow.”
Yikes.
