Oh. I’ll BET An NTSB Official “Confirmed” the Pilots’ Names
As in raised eyebrows and a big “Oh, yeah, RIGHT.”
Epic KTVU Fail: Anchor Reports Pilot Names Including ‘Sum Ting Wong’ and ‘Wi Tu Lo’
On today’s Noon newscast on KTVU, the station claimed it had “just learned the names of the 4 pilots on board” Asiana flight 214 which crashed last Saturday. But the station was given bad information that made it all the way into the newscast. If you read the names it becomes immediately clear this is a joke, which went unnoticed by the newsroom, producers and the anchor.
About 15 minutes later the station corrected its mistake, but claimed an NTSB official had confirmed the names.
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 this error.
ths update: Oh, blame the Summer Intern, why doncha…
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.
Office of Public Affairs
490 L’Enfant Plaza, SW
Washington, DC 20594
(202) 314-6100
Kelly Nantel
Fun, Media | tree hugging sister | 
July 12, 2013 11:02 pm
Subscribe
Revenge of the unpaid interns!
So it’s an intern’s fault that their news anchor graduated from the Ted Baxter School of Journalism?
back in my flying days we used to call a particular type of landing a “Chinese landing”…
wun wing lo…
Oh dear, I read this and shrieked with laughter. I am a bad, racist person and I am going to hell.
PS: It was worth it.
Don’t forget the NTSB is a Federal agency. Interns in the Federal government are paid, not volunteers. More likely, the intern was poorly trained and supervised.
And the TV station? They’re so stupid as to make Ted Baxter look good.
So I believe that both sides screwed up. Massively.
I’m pretty sure it was an intern with the tv station, not the NTSB. I don’t think the NTSB has interns.
No, Skyler. Intern was with the NTSB ~ read the press release I added. My theory is, the poor kid answered the phone yesterday and, after hearing a TV station calling with such a ridiculous question, figured it was a prank call and went, “Yeah, right!” The idiots at the station went, “Really?! RIGHT?!?!” Kid eyerolled and said, “Oh, yeah. Right.” And died laughing when he hung up, thankful he hadn’t fallen for it.
Something like that, Sis.
Back when I lived in the Bay Area, I wouldn’t have trusted KTVU to report a fart accurately. But what doesn’t pass the (forgive me) smell test hear is that NO ONE tried to read the names aloud before the broadcast? You’re given four foreign names and you don’t at least PRACTICE? (headdesk)
Dey So Dum.
Degrees in journalism, ya think??
Senator DICK Durbin wants to create a law to classify bloggers as not a journalist. Senator, taker that law and shove it.
I frequently golf with a pilot who told me that a major problem with Asian planes landing in North America is language. Traffic control can’t understand the pilot and vice versa.
We tried to reach the intern, Amanda Hugankiss, for comment, but calls to the NTSB were met with increasingly-irate cursing and cries of “THIS ISN’T FUNNY ANYMORE.”
[…] from their Exclusive Breaking News coverage of the crew of the Asiana flight we learn (via Ace) that the Professionals in the MSM, in this case USA Today, are […]