'Oh ****': Moment TV producer realized bungling reporters had been duped into reporting false and racist names for the Asiana crash pilots

Station broadcast inaccurate names but apologized for the error a few minutes later

KTVU says it confirmed the information with the National Transportation Safety Board

NTSB says a summer intern verified the names when approached by the station



A producer at the humiliated San Francisco TV station which published a series of fake and racially offensive names supposedly of the pilots on-board the crashed Asiana 214 flight, captured the moment he realized their mistake tweeting simply ‘oh ***t’

According to the San Francisco Chronicle , Brad Belstock, a producer with seven years experience at KTVU, revealed his embarrassment on the social networking site yesterday , just moments after an anchor in all seriousness read four 'names' including Captain Sum Ting Wong.

It is unclear whether Belstock - who cites ordering video and writing scripts among his responsibilities at the network - was in charge of the broadcast, but his two word response and entire Twitter profile was deleted moments later.

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'Oh ***t' KTVU producer Brad Belstock, pictured, tweeted these two words yesterday after the humiliating broadcast went out



In poor taste: KTVU News read these names live on television today stating that the National Transportation Safety Board had confirmed that these were the pilots of Asiana 214 KTVU was forced to make an immediate apology moments after the on-air gaffe at Midday yesterday.

Presenter Tori Campbell announced that the station had just learned the names of the four pilots who were on board Asiana flight 214 when it crashed at San Francisco International Airport on Saturday. She then proceeded to read out four fake names from a teleprompter as they appeared on screen over footage of the wreckage. The names poked fun at the crash and have been further criticized for their racist undertones. The first name — 'Captain Sum Ting Wong' might have been a giveaway that something was not quite right. RELATED ARTICLES Previous

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Next Outrage at news station duped into reporting false and... Third young girl passenger from doomed Asiana Flight 214... Share this article Share However, with the camera's rolling and in the middle of a live broadcast, Ms. Campbell continued to read without so much as flinching: 'Wi Tu Lo, Ho Lee Fuk, Bang Ding Ow.' It is not yet clear where the names, which mock the tragedy which killed three, originated.

The broadcaster said they came from a source who they were refusing to identify. They also tried to justify the move saying they confirmed the names with the National Transportation Safety Board before airing them.

The safety board admitted a summer intern told KTVU the spelling of the names was correct. The broadcaster said they never checked the position of the employee in the organisation and rushed to get the names into their lunchtime broadcast.

On his evening newscast, anchor Frank Somerville apologized further.

'First, we never read the names out loud, phonetically sounding them out,' he said.

'Then, during our phone call to the NTSB where the person confirmed the spellings of the names, we never asked that person to give us their position with the agency.

'We heard this person verify the information without questioning who they were and then rushed the names on our noon newscast.'

In a statement the NTSB admitted a summer intern had 'erroneously' confirmed the names of the flight crew and was 'acting outside the scope of his authority' in doing so.

'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,' the NTSB said in a statement. '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,' it added.



Days earlier, KTVU news director Lee Rosenthal was crowing about how good his news operation had performed.

'Being first on air and on every platform in all aspects of our coverage was a great accomplishment, but being 100% accurate, effectively using our great sources and social media without putting a single piece of erroneous information on our air, is what we are most proud of as a newsroom.'

The station issued a statement on Friday afternoon acknowledging it had 'misidentified the pilots involved.'

Third victim: A San Francisco hospital says a third victim of a plane crash, a Chinese girl, has died from her injuries. She was among about a dozen injured still in hospital after Asiana flight 214 crashed as it approached the airport too low last week In an-online apology, KTVU general manager Tom Raponi wrote: 'We sincerely regret the error and took immediate action to apologize, both in the newscast where the mistake occurred, as well as on our website and social media sites. Nothing is more important to us than having the highest level of accuracy and integrity, and we are reviewing our procedures to ensure this type of error does not happen again.' However, the apologies from KTVU and the NTSB have done little to abate anger over the issue.

Paul Cheung, president of the Asian American Journalists Association, said in a statement: ' Those names were not only wrong, but so grossly offensive that it’s hard for us at the Asian American Journalists Association to fathom how those names made it on the broadcast. 'With such a vaunted reputation among local news stations, we expected much more from KTVU. We fail to understand how those obviously phony names could escape detection before appearing on the broadcast and were spoken by the news anchor. We urge KTVU to conduct a thorough review to prevent similar lapses.'

'AAJA is embarrassed for the anchor of the noon broadcast, who was as much a victim as KTVU’s viewers and KTVU’s hard-working staff, including the journalists who produced stellar work covering the crash.'

'But we’re mostly saddened that a tragedy that took the lives of three people and injured scores of other passengers could be taken as an opportunity for an apparent joke.'

Another unidentified teen has died of her injuries bring the death toll in the tragic crash up to three.

A further 180 people were injured, many serious. Based in Oakland, California, the Fox affiliate represents a city where 16.8% of the population is Asian.

KTVU also broadcasts in two heavily Asian-populated communities: San Francisco, where Asians make up 33.3% of the total population and San Jose, where 32% of the population is Asian. KTVU’s false report comes after a week of speculating whether last week's disastrous Asiana Airlines crash could be attributed to Korean 'culture' and whether South Korea’s tradition of deference to hierarchy could have played a role in the crash.

Broken news: Anchor Tori Campbell read the names off the teleprompter and didn't bat an eye, adding that the information had been confirmed by the National Transportation Safety Board

Asiana Airlines has identified two of the four flying crew on board as the pilot and copilot Lee Kang-kook and Lee Jung-min.

Coverage of the tragic plane crash at San Francisco International Airport, which killed three people and injured dozens of others last Saturday has proven tricky for some news outlets.