Intern 'Confirmed' Racist Names To Bay Area TV Station

UPDATE 12N MONDAY 7/15/2013: Asiana Airlines announced Monday that it was going to sue a San Francisco TV station that it said damaged the airline's reputation by using bogus and racially offensive names for four pilots on a plane that crashed earlier this month in San Francisco. Neither the station nor the NTSB commented on where the names originated.

Tom's Take: There's gotta be more to this story. Stay Tuned.

Earlier Posting...

Bay Area Fox affiliate KTVU purportedly learned the names of the flight crew of Asiana flight 214, which crashed last Saturday at San Francisco International Airport, killing two. These—"Sum Ting Wong," "Wi Tu Lo," "Ho Lee Fuk," and "Bang Ding Ow"—are not their names. The newscaster's credulous reading puts it over the top.

This aired just after noon, local time. The station read a statement later in the broadcast: 

"Earlier in the newscast we gave some names of pilots involved in the Asiana Airlines crash. These names were not accurate despite an NTSB official in Washington confirming them late this morning. We apologize for the error."

 Turns out the “official” was an intern. The NTSB issued an apology.

The National Transportation Safety Board apologizes for inaccurate and offensive names that were mistakenly confirmed as those of the pilots of Asiana flight 214, which crashed at San Francisco International Airport on July 6. 

Earlier today, in response to an inquiry from a media outlet, a summer intern acted outside the scope of his authority when he erroneously confirmed the names of the flight crew on the aircraft. 

The NTSB does not release or confirm the names of crewmembers or people involved in transportation accidents to the media. We work hard to ensure that only appropriate factual information regarding an investigation is released and deeply regret today's incident. 

Appropriate actions will be taken to ensure that such a serious error is not repeated.

Tom's Take: Hard to imagine that the station's graphics editor, news editor, news producer, new anchors didn't catch this prank. But still a pretty funny bit.