Asiana Airlines has decided to back down from filing a lawsuit against Bay Area TV station KTVU-TV, which gave incorrect and racist names for the Asiana Flight 214 pilots and staff.
During its Friday broadcast, KTVU showed clearly incorrect names for the pilots, including “Capt. Sum Ting Wong” and “Wi Tu Lo.” The station later issued an apology, but insisted that the names were confirmed by the NTSB. The NTSB followed that up with an apology of its own, noting that the agency does not give out pilot names and that a summer intern had been the person who confirmed the names for KTVU.
Nevertheless, Asiana threatened to file a lawsuit. “The reputation of the four pilots and of the company had been seriously damaged by this report. The company is reviewing taking legal action against both KTVU-TV and the NTSB,” a spokesman told CNN over the weekend.
On Wednesday, the New York Daily News reported that Asiana has since backed down from the threat.
But now, plane manufacturer Boeing is the target of a lawsuit, with 83 passengers filing a suit. In the filing, the plaintiffs allege that it was a mechanical malfunction that caused the Boeing 777 to crash at the San Francisco Airport on June 6. It was filed in Chicago, where Boeing is based.
There were 307 passengers on the plane, three of whom died. The NTSB has not issued its own report on the incident yet.