Asiana Airlines, Dozens of Passengers, Reach San Francisco Crash Settlement

March 4, 2015 by Joyce Lee and Alex Dobuzinskis

Asiana Airlines Inc settled with 72 passengers of its flight that crashed at the San Francisco airport in 2013, a spokesman of the South Korean carrier said on Wednesday.

The spokesman declined to give any further details of the settlement. Asiana shares were unchanged at 0320 GMT.

Frank Pitre, a lawyer for the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, told the Associated Press this was the first settlement in connection with the crash, the Associated Press reported earlier on Wednesday.

Pitre could not be immediately reached for comment.

Terms of the settlement, which also includes the plane’s manufacturer Boeing Co and Air Cruisers Co, which made the evacuation slides, were not publicly released, according to the Associated Press.

Boeing and Air Cruisers, which is now called Zodiac Aero Evacuation Systems, could not be immediately reached for comment on the settlement.

The July 6, 2013, crash of Asiana Airlines flight 214 occurred when the Boeing 777 jetliner’s tail struck a seawall short of the runway, sending the aircraft into a spin, leading to the deaths of three teenage passengers from China and injuries to more than 180 passengers out of about 300 people on board.

Last year, the National Transportation Safety Board said Boeing should consider modifying flight controls on the 777 jetliner in response to the Asiana Airlines crash.

The agency also said the pilots for the Seoul-based airline committed at least 20 errors in the final 14 miles of approach to the airport, and it cited “mismanagement” by the pilots as the probable cause of the crash.

Asiana said it accepted NTSB’s principal finding that the final responsibility to control an abnormal situation lies with the pilots. At the time, Boeing said it disagreed with the agency’s recommendations.