The Asiana Airlines crash Saturday on the runway of the San Francisco airport marked the first deaths involving a Boeing 777 aircraft in the 18 years it's flown the skies, ABC News reported.
"The triple-seven is one of the safest airplanes in use,” John Nance, the television station's aviation analyst said. "It's been a marvelous bird. These airplanes are over the water, over the ocean all the time, and Asiana has been running them many years very successfully."
Two are dead and 182 people were taken to hospitals following the failed landing at San Francisco International Airport. The wreckage remains onsite while the National Transportation Safety Board investigates.
Since 1995, the Boeing 777 has logged close to five million flights, and the first plane of the fleet still is in service. The Asiana Airlines plane that crashed was 7 years old. The airline operates 71 jets and carries nearly 15 million passengers annually.
According to a Boeing report, the 777 has had two “hull-loss” accidents in the past that caused aircraft damage but no fatalities.
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