Asiana Airlines Planning To Sue Television Station For Racist Pilot Names, Claims KTVU Damaged Its Reputation

Asiana Airlines is reportedly planning to sue KTVU television channel for using racially offensive names to describe the airline's four pilots who were onboard the ill-fated plane that crashed in San Francisco on July 6, Associated Press reported on Monday.

Lee Hyomin, a spokesperson for Asiana, said that the company took the decision to sue KTVU television to "strongly respond to its racially discriminatory report" that belittled Asians. According to the AP report, Lee said the lawsuit will be filed in U.S. courts, but did not elaborate on what legal measures it was considering.

Lee added that Asiana has not decided whether to launch similar legal action against the National Transportation Safety Board, or NTSB, whose intern was responsible for confirming the pilots' names to the news station.

“The National Transportation Safety Board apologizes for inaccurate and offensive names that were mistakenly confirmed as those of the pilots of Asiana flight 214, which crashed at San Francisco International Airport on July 6,” NTSB said in a press statement on Friday.

“Earlier today, in response to an inquiry from a media outlet, a summer intern acted outside the scope of his authority when he erroneously confirmed the names of the flight crew on the aircraft.”

NTSB did not release the intern's name but assured that serious action would be taken to ensure that such an error is not repeated.

The incident occurred on Friday, when a news report on the San Francisco airline crash used bogus names of four pilots, which spelled out phrases such as ‘Something Wrong’ and ‘We Too Low,’ CNN reported. And, though KTVU news anchor Tori Campbell, the network and NTSB apologized for the incident, Asiana is moving ahead with the lawsuit saying the news report damaged its reputation.