VOA慢速英语2013 Investigating the Crash of Asiana Airlines Flight 214

 

Investigating the Crash of Asiana Airlines Flight 214

From VOA Learning English, this is In The News.

American investigators¹ this week examined wreckage² from the Asiana Airlines passenger jet that crashed last Saturday at San Francisco airport. Officials say two kinds of equipment, the autopilot and auto-throttle, did not appear to have failed. American and South Korean officials are working together on the investigation³. Asiana is Korea's second largest airline after Korean Air.

Asiana Flight 214 was carrying more than 300 people from Seoul to the United States. They included 141 Chinese, 77 Koreans and 61 Americans. Two passengers died after the crash. More than 180 people were taken to California hospitals for treatment. They were injured when the airplane, a Boeing 777, crash-landed.

Information from the plane's flight data recorder shows that the aircraft was traveling too slowly as it came in for a landing. The landing gear struck a seawall at the end of the airport runway, causing the tail end of the plane to break off.

Investigators are also attempting to understand events that led to a 90 second delay in the order for everyone to leave the airplane. The chairwoman of the National Transportation Safety Board, Deborah Hersman, met with reporters Thursday in San Francisco. She said her investigators had questioned six of the 12 flight attendants. The other six remained hospitalized.

Ms. Hersman said investigators would talk with all the flight crew members as they try to learn about the performance of the plane’s safety equipment. Two flight crew members were injured when emergency escape equipment inflated⁴ inside the airplane.

The equipment is supposed to open up outside the plane so passengers can slide to the ground. The air safety official said the manufacturer of the device had offered to cooperate in the investigation.  

At an earlier press conference, the NTSB chairwoman said the pilot at the controls was only about halfway⁵ through his training on the Boeing 777.

But the head of Asiana Airlines rejected suggestions that the pilot and his co-pilot trainer lacked experience. 

Speaking at his company's headquarters in Seoul, Asiana Airlines president Yoon Young-doo defended the pilots' training.

American lawmakers are pressing for enactment⁶ of new pilot training rules in the United States and around the world. Senator Charles Schumer is from New York, where a 2009 plane crash killed 49 people.

“There is no reason that American passengers should be put at risk by poorly trained pilots in other countries.”

Earlier this week, South Korean President Park Geun-Hye sent a letter of regret to Chinese President Xi Jinping over the Asiana Airlines crash. She also expressed sympathy to the families of two Chinese students who died. The two 16-year-old girls were the only deaths. They were found outside the plane, which caught fire as it slid down the runway. Investigators say one of the victims may have been struck by an emergency vehicle.

Some survivors⁷ of the crash have criticized the lack of emergency medical transport. Fire trucks arrived within a minute of the crash but ambulances were delayed in reaching all the injured.   

And that’s In the News from VOA Learning English. I’m Steve Ember.

1 investigators   

n.调查者，审查者( investigator的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• This memo could be the smoking gun that investigators have been looking for. 这份备忘录可能是调查人员一直在寻找的证据。
• The team consisted of six investigators and two secretaries. 这个团队由六个调查人员和两个秘书组成。 来自《简明英汉词典》

2 wreckage   

n.（失事飞机等的）残骸，破坏，毁坏

参考例句：

• They hauled him clear of the wreckage.他们把他从形骸中拖出来。
• New states were born out of the wreckage of old colonial empires.新生国家从老殖民帝国的废墟中诞生。

3 investigation   

n.调查，调查研究

参考例句：

• In an investigation,a new fact became known, which told against him.在调查中新发现了一件对他不利的事实。
• He drew the conclusion by building on his own investigation.他根据自己的调查研究作出结论。

4 inflated   

adj.（价格）飞涨的；（通货）膨胀的；言过其实的；充了气的v.使充气（于轮胎、气球等）( inflate的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）膨胀；（使）通货膨胀；物价上涨

参考例句：

• He has an inflated sense of his own importance. 他自视过高。
• They all seem to take an inflated view of their collective identity. 他们对自己的集体身份似乎都持有一种夸大的看法。 来自《简明英汉词典》

5 halfway   

adj.中途的，不彻底的，部分的；adv.半路地，在中途，在半途

参考例句：

• We had got only halfway when it began to get dark.走到半路，天就黑了。
• In study the worst danger is give up halfway.在学习上，最忌讳的是有始无终。

6 enactment   

n.演出，担任…角色；制订，通过

参考例句：

• Enactment refers to action.演出指行为的表演。
• We support the call for the enactment of a Bill of Rights.我们支持要求通过《权利法案》的呼声。

7 survivors   

幸存者，残存者，生还者( survivor的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The survivors were adrift in a lifeboat for six days. 幸存者在救生艇上漂流了六天。
• survivors clinging to a raft 紧紧抓住救生筏的幸存者