Asiana 777 crash: Traveler inside terminal saw ‘billowing smoke’
A Phoenix-bound passenger inside the San Francisco International Airport terminal said Saturday that she saw a plane hit the ground and skid on its belly before turning into “billowing smoke.”
Krista Seiden, 26, a marketing manager from San Francisco, said she was in line to board her flight when she saw the plane make its landing. Nothing seemed amiss at first, she said, but then “I saw it hit the ground and it skidded on its belly.”
She recalled exclaiming: “A plane just crashed.” The startled agent at the U.S. Airways counter said: “What? Are you sure?” then got on the phone with emergency personnel. The agent arranged for passengers who were already on board Seiden’s flight to leave the plane.
Seiden said emergency vehicles headed to the site about a minute after the crash.
Seiden, who was headed to a family vacation in Flagstaff, Ariz., had praise for U.S. Airways personnel, who calmly and efficiently found her a new flight to Phoenix from Oakland, then arranged, for free, a connecting flight to Flagstaff, so that she would not have to wait several hours for a ride.
Asked about getting on a flight, Seiden said she was not anxious because she came from “an aviation family,” with a pilot father and a flight attendant mother.
ALSO:
Plane crash: Passengers on other flights redirected from SFO
San Francisco plane crash: No sign of terrorism, officials say
Asiana SFO crash: 1 dead, 20-30 injured, S. Korean official says
Twitter: @MarthaGroves
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