Wintry weather has forced postponement of a National Transportation Safety Board hearing into the deadly crash-landing of an Asiana jet at San Francisco International Airport in July.
The hearing was set to start Tuesday in Washington, D.C., at NTSB headquarters. Asiana's chief pilot and training manager were scheduled to testify, along with representatives from Boeing, the Federal Aviation Administration and the San Francisco Fire Department.
Tthe hearing has been rescheduled to begin Wednesday morning, at 8:30 a.m. ET, the NTSB announced. And the two-day hearing will now be condensed into one day only. Key stakeholders are expected to testify on pilot awareness in highly automated aircraft, emergency response and cabin safety.
Asiana Airlines Flight 214 crash landed at SFO on July 6, killing three teenagers and injuring nearly 200 passengers.
Airport officials in November released preliminary findings from a self-review of the airport's performance in the crash. The review cited the need for improvement in coordinating emergency responses and providing adequate customer service.
MORE: SFO Releases Post-Asiana Crash Analysis
Investigators leading up to the hearings traveled overseas and interviewed many key players. Here is what they have done so far:
- The investigator-in-charge and investigators from the Operations and Human Performance Group traveled to Korea and met with officials from Asiana Airlines. While there, investigators conducted numerous interviews with Asiana management and training personnel, observed Asiana procedures in a simulator and an exemplar aircraft, and gathered further documentation on airline training and policies.
- NTSB investigators from the maintenance group also traveled to Korea and reviewed the records for the accident airplane, including the maintenance that had been performed on the evacuation slides.
- The "Survival Factors Group" conducted an examination of the evacuation slide/raft systems at the manufacturer's facility in New Jersey and is planning future testing of the systems. The group also re-examined the wreckage to gather additional information about the fire propagation and structural damage. Following that examination, the wreckage was sectioned and moved to a secure storage facility.
- Investigators and party members met in Seattle to examine the recorded flight data and compare it to the expected airplane systems operation. The "Systems Group" worked on developing a test plan for the mode control panel and the "Vehicle Performance Group" worked to finalize the event simulation match.
FULL COVERAGE: Flight 214 Crash Landing
