An Asiana Airlines Airbus A320 aircraft is seen with its evacuation slides deployed after it overran a runway at the Hiroshima airport in Mihara in Hirishima prefecture, western Japan on April 15, 2015. - AFP
An aviation safety official at the transport ministry in Tokyo told AFP that teams of investigators were on their way.
“The left side of the aircraft’s horizontal tail was damaged... but how the accident occurred should be determined as the transport safety board carry out their investigation,” he said.
The South Korean carrier said 18 passengers -- 14 Japanese, two Koreans and two Chinese -- had been hurt. Only one of them had to stay overnight in hospital. There was no explanation for the discrepancy between Asiana and the Japanese authorities.
“Asiana Airlines apologizes for causing concern to the passengers and the people over the accident,” it said in a press statement.
“Asiana Airlines has immediately set up a response team to cope with the aftermath.
“As to the determination of the cause of the accident, we will cooperate as closely as possible with the relevant authorities.”
An Asiana spokeswoman told AFP in Seoul it was checking Japanese news reports that the flight was approaching the runway at a lower altitude than normal before it grazed the communications tower near the runway.
Tuesday’s accident carries echoes of an Asiana flight that crashed in San Francisco in July, 2013, killing three people and leaving 182 injured.
US investigators concluded that a mismanaged approach for landing in a highly automated cockpit was the probable cause of the accident, in which a Boeing 777 clipped a sea wall with its landing gear, then crashed and burst into flames.
The South Korean Transport ministry ordered a 45-day suspension of Asiana Airlines’ service to San Francisco as a penalty.
Limited time offer:
Just RM5 per month.
