Asiana crash video: 'Firefighters saw the 16-year-old girl before she was run over'
Ye Meng Yuan was killed after being accidentally run over by fire crews at the scene of the crash
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Your support makes all the difference.The family of a 16-year-old girl killed in the Asiana Airlines crash in are to sue the city of San Francisco, after unseen footage was located which appears to show firefighters were aware of her position before running her over.
Ye Meng Yuan, a teenager from China, was killed after being accidentally run over by fire services who were responding to the scene of the crash.
She had been travelling on the Asiana Airlines Flight 214 from Incheon, South Korea to San Francisco, which crashed in July last year, leaving three people dead and 181 injured.
It was originally thought that Ye Meng had been accidentally run over after being covered by foam used to put out a fire on the plane, with firefighters unable to see her on the ground.
However, footage provided to CBS News by a source close to Ye Meng's family appears to show that firefighters had found her on the ground before the firefighters got to work. The firefighter featured on the video can be overheard explaining to the driver that there is a body close to the road, and Ye Meng is visible from the truck's camera.
The CBS report says that a witness told investigators they had made a three-second assessment in relation to Ye Meng's condition, and concluded that she was “their first casualty.”
San Mateo County Coroner Robert Foucrault ruled that Ye Meng was flung from the plane but had died of “multiple blunt injuries that are consistent with being run over by a motor vehicle” and crucially, “was alive at the time” of when she was attended to.
In light of the new footage being released, this has prompted Ye Meng's parents to file a claim against the city and county of San Francisco, claiming that emergency responders “were grossly negligent” in their work.
The family's attorney detailed the reasons for the claim, saying that the emergency workers had: “failed to move her to a safe location, failed to mark her location; failed to protect her from moving vehicles in the vincinity of the Aircraft where it was known that vehicles would be traveling; failed to alert commanders at the scene; and/or abandoned Ye Meng Yuan in a perilous location.”
The National Transportation Safety Board said the jet descended in altitude faster than it should have, and had a slower forward speed than intended, suggesting the pilots were responsible for the crash.
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