Asiana Flight 214's Crash Shows Airline Safety Progress

After a look at the battered wreckage of Asiana Airlines Flight 214 strewn along Runway 28L at San Francisco International Airport, most observers might assume the worst had happened. The tail section had been torn from the widebody Boeing 777 during an ill-fated landing. One of the huge engines was ripped from the aircraft’s wings. And a gaping gash atop the fuselage revealed a fire-gutted interior from the conflagration that engulfed the airliner soon after it came to rest next to the tarmac. Yet only two of the 307 passengers and crew on board the jumbo jet died in the July 6 crash. Thanks to near-empty fuel tanks, design enhancements that helped keep its aluminum body largely whole, and scores of safety modifications adopted since the 1980s, the crash landing of Flight 214 became primarily a story of survivability instead of disaster.

“This crash shows how the plane really did its job,” says Richard Aboulafia, vice president of analysis at the Teal Group consulting firm. “The fuselage stayed intact and kept almost everyone alive even after such a violent landing.” Adds Richard Healing, a former National Transportation Safety Board member who now runs Washington-based R Cubed Consulting: “This was a phenomenally survivable accident.”