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Asiana plane crash: Eye witnesses describe 'huge fireball' on landing

Asiana Airlines Flight 214 from South Korea that crashed Saturday while landing at San Francisco International airport sent up a huge fireball, shedding its tail and spinning before screeching to a stop, according to eyewitness accounts.

Elliott Stone, a passenger on the flight, told CNN that he thought the plane was approaching "a little high (then came) down a little sharp."


A photograph posted to Twitter shows what appear to be passengers walking off the plane, some of them toting bags, as smoke rises from the other side, according to CNN.

Smokes rises from Asiana Flight 214 after it crashed at San Francisco International Airport: AP




There were "fire and rescue people all over the place. They're evacuating the injured. I haven't felt this way since 9/11," Eun, an executive at Seoul-based Samsung, said in another tweet from the airport, according to San Francisco Chronicle.

Adrian John Mirabueno, a mechanic for United Air Lines, who saw the plane landing, told the Chronicle: "It landed straight, then went to the side and then all you saw was hella smoke coming off it. I was scared for the families, and to tell the truth I've never seen anything like it."

Anthony Castorani, who witnessed the landing from a nearby hotel, said he saw the plane touch the ground then noticed a large plume of smoke.

"You heard a pop and you immediately saw a large, brief fireball that came from underneath the aircraft," he was quoted as saying by CNN.



"It all happened so suddenly," Stapchuck said.

A photo provided to CNN by Eunice Bird Rah-and shot by her father, who was a passenger on the plane-shows flames and smoke bursting out of many of the aircraft's windows.