NTSB blames intern for confirming false, racially offensive names

A federal agency blamed a summer intern for confirming false, racially offensive names stemming from a prank as the identities of the pilots on Asiana Airlines Flight 214 that crashed in San Francisco last week.

While far from complete, the National Transportation Safety Board's investigation has focused on the actions of the plane's pilots leading up to the crash as well as their experience flying the Boeing 777. The July 6 crash killed three passengers and sent more than 180 other passengers and crew members to area hospitals, 14 of which remain hospitalized.

The NTSB apologized in a statement Friday night after San Francisco television station KTVU-TV broadcast the obviously fake names, attributing the confirmation to an NTSB official. It is still unclear where the Fox affiliate originally got the false names that were later incorrectly confirmed by the NTSB intern.

"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," read the NTSB statement.

The agency said "appropriate actions" would be taken to prevent what it called a "serious error" from being repeated.

The Asian American Journalists Association said that, even with the NTSB's apology, the station "is hardly off the hook" and called the names "grossly offensive."

"We fail to understand how those obviously phony names could escape detection before appearing on the broadcast and were spoken by the news anchor," read a statement from association president Paul Cheung. "We urge KTVU to conduct a thorough review to prevent similar lapses."

KTVU also apologized for the error, both on air and online.

The station said it made "several mistakes," including not reading the names out loud before reporting them and not asking for the position of the person reached at NTSB.

"We heard this person verify the information without questioning who they were and then rushed the names on our noon newscast," read the KTVU statement. "Even with this statement from the NTSB, KTVU accepts full responsibility for this mistake."