Survivors mark one year since Asiana Airlines crash

SAN FRANCISCO (KABC) -- Sunday marked the one-year anniversary of the deadly Asiana Airlines crash at San Francisco International Airport.

On the morning of July 6, 2013, Asiana flight 214 crashed on its final approach to San Francisco. Within moments, the calls started pouring into 911.

"Hi, I'm reporting an airplane crash at SFO," one caller told dispatchers.

Of the 307 people on board, nearly 200 people were taken to local hospitals. Their injuries ranged from bruises and broken bones to serious spinal injuries.

"It was like we were all bouncing all over the place," survivor Esther Jang said. "I just remember there being dust everywhere and I was freaking out and then it just stopped."

From the very beginning, it seemed clear that the Boeing 777 was flying too low and too slow as it came in for landing.

"And there was no wind, no fog. I'm a regular of the San Francisco Airport, and I had seen it in much tougher conditions to land, so, yeah, it was so shocking that we could miss the runway by so much," survivor Ben Levy said.

The plane clipped a seawall just short of the runway and then spun violently, breaking into pieces. There was chaos on the ground with passengers running from the plane as emergency crews arrived.

Pictures showed the devastating aftermath inside with rows of seats dislodged from the cabin floor. Three passengers were killed, one of whom was run over by fire trucks involved in the rescue.

Now a year later, the National Transportation Safety Board has officially blamed the crash on the pilots.

Investigators determined they inadvertently deactivated the plane's system for controlling airspeed.

"In this instance, the flight crew over-relied on automated systems that they did not fully understand, Christopher A. Hart, the NTSB's acting chairman, said. "As a result, they flew the aircraft too low and too slow and collided with the seawall at the end of the runway."

It was also determined that the pilots failed to monitor the speed, a basic skilled required of all captains. But some of the blame was also directed toward the complexity of the Boeing 777's automatic controls, something Boeing rejected, citing the plane's safety record.

Before last year, in fact, a Boeing 777 had never been involved in a fatal crash. The Boeing 777, however, is the same plane operated by Malaysian Airlines that went missing in March.

Officials believe the missing Malaysia Airlines plane may have also crashed due to an operator error. The official cause remains under investigation.