This aircraft landed short of the runway with tail touching down first. 

 

 

Most passengers survived. There were 307 on board, including 16 crew. Officials said 123 escaped without injury and 181 were hospitalized or treated for injuries. Among the injured, 49 are in serious condition and five at San Francisco General Hospital, including a child, remain in critical condition. Among the 47 others at San Francisco General, several were treated for minor injuries, including fractures and abrasions, and were released Saturday night. 

 

The first crash for a Boeing 777. We wait to understand why it happened as investigations are underway. 

More news about San Fransisco Air Crash

 

"They had set speed at 137 knots (158 mph), and he assumed that the auto-throttles were maintaining speed," Hersman said of the instructor pilot.

She noted that the pilots were responsible for maintaining airspeed.

 

"We have a flying pilot and two other pilots in the cockpit and they have a monitoring function," she said. "One of the critical things that needs to be monitored on an approach to landing is speed. So we need to understand what was going on in the cockpit and also what was going on with the aircraft."

 

Experts said even with auto-throttle active, the pilots should have been monitoring the plane's speed every few seconds, and could have manually taken control of the engines at any time.Maintaining proper airspeed and altitude is "the most basic responsibility of the pilot, like breathing in and out," Weber said. But it could be the case, he added, that "pilots are paying attention to the computer rather than paying attention to the fundamentals."

 

Courtesy - http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-san-francisco-plane-crash-20130710,0,21943.story

Unfortunate but it's true.....every industry has an excessive focus on automations......even in service industry there are examples where automations have not yielded the desired benefits...

Airlines is one of the industries, where even 6 sigma is not enough.... we need to achieve zero defects..