(02-25) 15:30 PST SAN FRANCISCO -- Asiana Airlines has been fined $500,000 for failing to help family members of passengers who were on the plane that crashed last year at San Francisco International Airport, federal officials said Tuesday.

For about a day after the July 6 crash, the Korean airline failed to widely publicize any telephone number for those worried about their loved ones, besides a toll-free line for reservations, said the U.S. Department of Transportation.

The reservation line didn't give callers an option to inquire about the crash, and those who used the number had to "navigate through cumbersome automated menus" before speaking to an employee, the agency said.

The carrier took two full days to contact the families of "just three-quarters" of the 291 passengers, officials said. They said some passengers weren't contacted until five days after the crash.

The airline also didn't quickly deploy employees and translators to the airport, officials said.

Three girls died and dozens were hurt when the Boeing 777 hit a seawall short of the runway and broke apart as it tried to land. The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the cause of the crash.

The Department of Transportation has never before had to issue a fine for a violation of a law that mandates prompt assistance to relatives of crash victims, officials said.

"The last thing families and passengers should have to worry about at such a stressful time is how to get information from their carrier," U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said in a statement.

The airline acknowledged to investigators that "it experienced difficulties in fulfilling its statutory and family assistance plan obligations," according to a consent order signed by Asiana. Hyomin Lee, an airline spokeswoman said Tuesday, "Asiana provided extensive support to the passengers and their families following the accident and will continue to do so."

The order said the airline will pay a $400,000 fine and will get a $100,000 credit for "costs in sponsoring multiple industry-wide conferences and training sessions in 2013, 2014 and 2015, to provide lessons learned."