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Update: The National Safety and Transportation board has issued a statement apologizing for a summer intern who confirmed fake and racist Asiana Airlines pilot names to Bay Area station KTVU, which broadcast them on Friday.
An NTSB public affairs officer previously told The Hollywood Reporter on Friday that the agency did not release the names or confirm them to the station. The officer, pointing to the latest statement, has now clarified that the agency “does not release or confirm the names of crewmembers or people involved in transportation accidents to the media.”
Earlier:
Bay Area TV station KTVU, whose initial video footage of the Boeing 777 crash that left three dead and many wounded on Sunday was carried by major networks, is in hot water for falsely reporting the names of the Asiana Airlines pilots.
On Friday, the station reported the names as being “Captain Sum Ting Wong,” “Wi Tu Lo,” “Ho Lee Fuk” and “Bang Ding Ow.”
The news outlet has subsequently apologized for the report but maintained that those names were confirmed by “an NTSB official in the agency’s Washington, D.C., office,” a statement on the station’s website read.
“We sincerely regret the error and took immediate action to apologize, both in the newscast where the mistake occurred, as well as on our website and social media sites,” said Tom Raponi, KTVU/KICU vice president and GM, in a statement.
“Nothing is more important to us than having the highest level of accuracy and integrity, and we are reviewing our procedures to ensure this type of error does not happen again,” Raponi added.
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