An awful story just got a little more awful yesterday when San Franciso station KTVU-TV (a Fox affiliate) identified the pilots of the crashed Asiana Airlines plane as “Captain Sum Ting Wong, Wi Tu Lo, Ho Lee Fuk,” and “Bang Ding Ow.”
via the LA Times
Both a San Francisco Bay Area TV station and the National Transportation Safety Board apologized for their roles in the broadcast Friday of fake, racially insensitive names of the pilots flying ill-fated Asiana Airlines Flight 214.
The segment that referred to the pilots by four false names, including "Capt. Sum Ting Wong" and "Wi Tu Lo," has gone viral and drawn heavy criticism on the Internet.
In a statement read on KTVU-TV Friday night, anchor Frank Somerville said the station made several mistakes.
Somerville did not say how exactly the station got the errant names, which were read aloud by an anchor.
Before the broadcast, "we never read the names out loud, phonetically sounding them out," he said.
Late Friday, the NTSB acknowledged that a summer intern errantly confirmed the names to KTVU when a reporter from the station called about them.
