Plane Crash Victim Possibly Run Over By Fire Truck Identified
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS/AP/BCN) -- The San Mateo County coroner has identified the Chinese girl who might have been run over accidentally on the runway by a fire truck racing to the scene of Saturday's plane crash at San Francisco International Airport.
Coroner Robert Foucrault said Tuesday night that investigators told the parents of 16-year-old Ye Meng Yuan that she was the victim who may have been hit by the rescue vehicle at the site of the Asiana Airlines Flight 214 crash.
However, Foucrault said that he had not yet determined Ye's official cause of death or whether an emergency vehicle struck her at all.
Ye's parents flew into San Francisco late Monday along with the parents of the other girl killed in Saturday's crash, Ye's close friend Wang Lin Jia, also 16.
- SFO Plane Crash: Photo Gallery | Video Archive | Latest Updates
Foucrault said the families knew that one of the girls' deaths was being investigated for the possibility of being killed by a fire truck, but did not know which of the two until they met Tuesday with a representative from the coroner's office.
The San Francisco Police Department's hit-and-run unit is investigating Ye's death along with the National Transportation Safety Board, while the San Francisco Fire Department is conducting its own internal investigation.
NTSB officials said that airport surveillance video of the incident was inconclusive.
The two girls were part of a group of Chinese students slated to attend a Southern California school with a group of 35 students in an exchange program.
The program was cancelled following the weekend crash, which in addition to killing the two girls sent 180 of the plane's passengers to Bay Area hospitals.
(Copyright 2013 CBS San Francisco, the Associated Press and Bay City News. All rights reserved.)
