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A summer intern acting “outside the scope of his authority” is responsible for erroneously confirming the names of the pilots aboard the Asiana Airlines flight that crashed Saturday to an Oakland news station, the National Transportation Safety Board said.

During a live newscast Friday, KTVU Channel 2 reported the names of the flight crew as: “Sum Ting Wong,” “Wi Tu Lo,” “Ho Lee Fuk,” and “Bang Ding Ow.”

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Asiana Flight 214 collided with a rocky seawall at San Francisco Airport, just short of its intended runway last Saturday. Three people were killed and dozens of others injured. Investigators have said the plane came in too low and slow.

A representative for the transportation agency would not say whether the intern was fired for blunder. “We’ve taken the appropriate action,” Kelly Nantel told the National Post.



The agency’s policy is to never release or confirm the names of crew members or people involved in transportation accidents to media, Ms. Nantel said.

The station reacted by quickly issuing an apology later on during the newscast as well as on its website and social media accounts, but that didn’t prevent major media outlets including The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times and CNN from scooping up the story.

“We made several mistakes when we received this information. First, we never read the names out loud, phonetically sounding them out,” read the statement.