Airport firefighters to get training after tarmac death of China's Ye Mengyuan
Chinese girl survived crash of airliner in San Francisco, but was killed by fire trucks
Firefighters who work at San Francisco International Airport are receiving additional training on how to respond to air crashes after the Asiana Airlines accident in which a teenage girl from China was run over and killed by two emergency vehicles while lying injured on the runway.
Commanding officers from the San Francisco Fire Department's airport division would receive 40 to 80 hours of advanced instruction next year at the Fire Training Research Centre at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, the reported.
Federal rules require all rank-and-file firefighters assigned to US airports to have disaster-response training. Before the July 6 crash, the San Francisco Fire Department had its own in-house training programme, but the three commanders in charge of the crash of the South Korean airliner had never undergone it, according to the .
"There are many lessons to be learned here," Assistant Deputy Chief Dale Carnes, who oversees the department's airport division, said during a National Transportation Safety Board hearing on Wednesday where he announced the changes.
One of the three Chinese teenagers who died in the accident was a 16-year-old girl who survived the crash but became covered in firefighting foam and was run over by two fire trucks as she lay hurt on the runway.
Documents revealed that Ye Mengyuan was struck twice - once by a fire rig spraying foam and again 11 minutes later by a second truck that was turning around to fetch water.