In case you haven't already seen it, here's a news story that KTVU-TV in San Francisco ran on Friday, purporting to give the names of the four pilots of the Asiana plane that crashed at SFO on July 6:
Apparently the linguistically and ethnically offensive joke started as a newsroom prank, but someone took it seriously, and a summer intern at the FAA "confirmed" the names over the phone. (Presumably the "confirmation" was something like "Good one, man! Oh yeah, right, those were totally the names, no question about it. Heh.")
According to Daniel Arkin, "Asiana Airlines considering legal action over racially offensive fake pilot names", NBC News 7/14/2013:
Asiana Airlines is weighing legal action after the National Transportation Safety Board mistakenly confirmed to a California television station fake, racially offensive names for the pilots of the flight that crashed last week in San Francisco.
The Friday report on Oakland TV station KTVU, which used four erroneous and racially charged names for the pilots of Flight 214, seriously damaged the reputation of the four pilots and the company, according to Ki Won Suh, a public relations representative for Asiana Airlines.
Suh said that Asiana Airlines is, for that reason, “considering legal action” against KTVU and the NTSB. It was not immediately clear Sunday what legal recourse the airline was mulling.
It's amazing that this made it onto the air. "Sum Ting Wong" indeed.
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