Asiana passenger was alive when firetruck ran over her, coroner says

By Hailey Branson-Potts, Los Angeles Times

A 16-year-old Chinese student who was aboard Asiana Airlines Flight 214 was still alive when a firetruck ran over her, the San Mateo County coroner said Friday.


Ye Mengyuan died of "multiple blunt injuries that are consistent with being run over by a motor vehicle," said San Mateo County Coroner Robert J. Foucrault said in a news conference. "Those injuries she received, she was alive at the time.”



Ye was one of three passengers killed. Her body was found close to the aircraft’s left wing following the July 6 crash-landing at San Francisco International Airport, officials said.

Gordon Shyy, a spokesman for the San Francisco Police Department, said the girl was outside the jet and covered in fire retardant foam when the fire truck “went over her.”

San Francisco Fire Chief Joanne Hayes-White said last week that fire officials immediately notified police -- as well as the FBI and National Transportation Safety Board -- when they learned Ye might have been struck. The drivers of all five trucks at the scene tested negative for drugs and alcohol, she added.

Ye was from the eastern Chinese province of Zhejiang and was part of a group of teenagers heading for a three-week church summer camp in West Hills.

Sixteen-year-old Wang Linjia was also killed. She, too, was traveling to attend the church camp in the San Fernando Valley.

San Francisco General Hospital officials last week confirmed the death of a third girl, who died July 12. She was identified as Liu Yipeng, according to Chinese state media. She went to school with the other two victims who were killed in the crash, China News reported.