Teen Who Survived Asiana Crash Was Killed by Fire Truck

VOA News
19 July 2013 (3:08PM)

A coroner in California says one of the three victims of this month's Asiana Airlines plane crash in San Francisco was killed by an emergency vehicle rushing to the scene.

Authorities had confirmed last week that a fire truck ran over one of the passengers who died, but it was unclear at the time what caused the Chinese teenager's death.

San Mateo County Coroner Robert Foucrault told reporters Friday he was able to determine that the young student was alive after the crash, and that her death was due to "multiple blunt injuries ... consistent with being run over by a motor vehicle."

The crash landing of the Boeing 777 passenger plane on July 6 left three people dead and injured about 180 people, some critically.

San Francisco Fire Chief Joanne Hayes-White has offered her condolences to the victim's family. She was one of a group of Chinese teenagers heading for study trips in the United States who boarded the flight in Shanghai.

U.S. government investigators say the jet's landing gear hit a seawall at the end of the runway, causing the plane to skid. A flight data recorder showed the plane was traveling too slowly and too low in the final seconds of its flight.

U.S. authorities are still investigating and have not yet listed an exact cause for the crash, but pilot error is believed to be a central theme of the inquiry.