Girl survives plane crash only to be run over and killed by responding fire truck
A 16-year-old girl survived a plane crash[1] only to be run over twice and killed by a fire[2] struck responding to the scene of the incident moments later.
Ye Meng Yuan was sitting in the back of the plane and is believed to have been ejected onto the tarmac of the airport where later she was struck and killed by the emergency vehicle, according to the San Mateo County Coroner’s Office.
Police[3] said the teenager was covered in foam rescuers had sprayed on the burning wreckage of the Asiana Flight 214 that crash-landed at San Francisco International Airport on July 6, 2013, having travelled from South Korea.
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Ye Meng Yuan survived the crash but was run over moments later
“The driver [of the fire truck] may not have seen the young lady in the blanket of foam,” Ken Willette of the National Firefighter Protection Agency said at the time. “These could be factors contributing to this tragic event.”
However, video footage from a camera mounted on a San Francisco fire truck obtained by CBS[6] shows two emergency responders alerting vehicles to go around Chinese student Yuan as she lay on the ground because they thought she was dead.
She was run over at least twice and it was only when the fire truck moved that rescuers found Yuan’s body. Her friend from middle school Wang Linjia, 16, died in the crash and 15-year-old Liu Yipeng died in hospital on July 12. Dozens of others were injured with 182 of 302 survivors being taken to hospitals.
Footage shows Yuan lying on the ground (Image: CBS)
The crash-landing happened when the plane collided[7] with a seawall moments away from the runway and the investigation suggested the pilots failed to realise within good time that the aircraft was flying too slow and low.
The plane made impact and after a minute or so a dark plume of smoke was seen rising from the wreckage, with the fire being traced to a ruptured oil tank above the right engine. The leaking oil fell onto the hot engine and ignited the blaze.
The plane caught ablaze on crash-landing (Image: San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)
Asiana Airlines attendants were heralded heroes for helping save passengers, with cabin manager Lee Yoon-hye having been “the last person to leave the burning plane” according to AP. She told AP at the time that one of her colleagues carried a frightened schoolboy on her back off the plane and down the emergency exit slide.
Passenger Eugene Anthony Rah, who was sitting in business class on Asiana Flight 214, told The Wall Street Journal[8]: “She was a hero. This tiny, little girl was carrying people piggyback, running everywhere, with tears running down her face. She was crying, but she was still so calm and helping people.”
The fire was traced to a ruptured oil tank above the right engine (Image: AFP/Getty Images)
San Francisco fire chief Joanne Hayes-White praised Lee: “She was so composed I thought she had come from the terminal. She wanted to make sure that everyone was off… She was a hero.”
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References
- ^ plane crash (www.dailystar.co.uk)
- ^ fire (www.dailystar.co.uk)
- ^ Police (www.dailystar.co.uk)
- ^ Chilling last pic of dad and son, 10, in cockpit before death in fireball plane crash (www.dailystar.co.uk)
- ^ click here. (www.dailystar.co.uk)
- ^ CBS (www.cbsnews.com)
- ^ plane collided (www.dailystar.co.uk)
- ^ The Wall Street Journal (www.wsj.com)
- ^ here (www.dailystar.co.uk)