Claiming the news report has damaged its reputation, Asiana Airlines said it will sue an Oakland TV station that aired the bogus names of the flight crew piloting Flight 214, a Boeing 777 that crash-landed at San Francisco International Airport earlier this month.
If you haven't kept up with the story, somehow on Friday, KTVU received what it thought were the names of the flight crew. According to an apology posted on its website, the station called the National Transportation Safety Board and a summer intern confirmed the spelling of the names.
What didn't become clear to the station until after the broadcast is that when you said the names aloud, they were clearly offensive, both because they made fun of Asian names and because they made light of the crash that killed three people and injured many others.
The Associated Press reports on the lawsuit:
"Asiana has decided to sue KTVU-TV to 'strongly respond to its racially discriminatory report' that disparaged Asians, Asiana spokeswoman Lee Hyomin said. She said the airline will likely file suit in U.S. courts.
"She said the report seriously damaged Asiana's reputation. Asiana hasn't determined whether to launch a similar suit against the NTSB, Lee said.
"Neither the station nor the NTSB commented on where the names originated."
For the sake of good taste, we will not post video of the incident. A copy of it, however, is available on YouTube.
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