Asiana crash rescuers saw teen on runway before she was killed

Firefighters who responded to an Asiana Airlines plane that crash-landed in San Francisco in July of last year were warned about the presence of a teenage passenger on the ground outside the aircraft before she was fatally struck by an emergency vehicle, new video footage of the aftermath shows.

The video, first aired by CBS News late Tuesday, shows the girl, 16-year-old Ye Meng Yuan, lying in the grass before she was struck, according to an attorney for her family. A coroner concluded she was alive at the time and died when she was hit by a fire truck.

In the video, a firefighter with a helmet camera tells the driver of a fire truck that there's a person in front of him. A fire truck-mounted camera shows a firefighter directing the truck away from the person.

What's not clear from the video is why rescuers didn't try to move or clearly mark the presence of the person on the ground during the chaotic aftermath of the July 6 crash at San Francisco International Airport.  

A California prosecutor said Ye’s death was accidental and that the girl's body was hidden by firefighting foam on the runway when she was struck after the crash, which killed three passengers and injured more than 180 others.

Shortly after the crash, rescue officials confirmed that one of the plane-crash victims was run over by a fire truck. Firefighters told investigators they assumed the girl was dead and hurried on toward the damaged aircraft, according to documents released by the NTSB.

"This is not a matter of us being careless or callous," Assistant Deputy Chief Dale Carnes told the federal safety board last month. "It was the fact we were dealing with a very complex environment."

This month, Ye's family filed a wrongful death civil claim against the city of San Francisco, alleging gross negligence. The district attorney's office declined to comment on the case or the new videos.

According to the family's claim, two San Francisco firefighters saw Ye lying on the ground and alerted a supervisor, but they were instructed to move on and failed to mark her location.

It's still unknown how Yuan got out of the plane. Interviews for an ongoing National Traffic Safety Board investigation confirmed Yuan was covered with foam and struck twice.

"At least five firefighters knew of her presence before she was covered in foam. Nobody examined her, nobody touched her, nobody protected her, moved her or did anything to take her out of harm's way, and then they abandoned her there," said Anthony Tarricone, an attorney for Yuan's family.

San Francisco fire spokeswoman Mindy Talmadge said on Wednesday she could not comment on the video because of the pending litigation, though she confirmed there were videos and a few still photographs of the scene that were taken by firefighters and turned over to the department. The videos and photographs were given to attorneys who have filed lawsuits representing victims of the crash, Talmadge said.

In all, 304 of the 307 people aboard the Asiana flight survived after the airliner slammed into a seawall at the end of a runway during final approach for landing, the first fatal commercial airplane crash in the United States since February 2009.

The impact ripped off the back of the plane, tossed out three flight attendants and their seats, and scattered pieces of the jet across the runway as it spun and skidded to a stop.

Yuan was one of three Chinese teens who died; one died during the crash, and another died later in the hospital.

Wire services