Video: Amateur footage captures moment Boeing 777 plane crash-lands at San Francisco airport

Amateur video may help determine cause of accident

Amateur video footage capturing the moment a Boeing 777 crashed at San Francisco airport has been broadcast by the US television network CNN.

The footage was captured by an aviation enthusiast, Fred Hayes, who was walking with his family a mile away along San Francisco Bay. In an interview with CNN, Mr Hayes said: “My initial thought was that with the nose pitched up in the degree that it was that the pilot was maybe trying to divert the landing. As you can see in the video, it was pretty low at that point and that may or may not have been the case.”

Click here to see more images

The speed and altitude of the plane’s approach is key to the investigation, according to the National Transportation Safety Board, and it is hoped that the footage will help determine what went so badly wrong.

Two Chinese teenagers - Wang Linjia, 16, and Ye Mengyuan, 17 - travelling to a summer camp in the US were killed in the incident. Officials say one may have been run over by a rescue vehicle in the dramatic aftermath of the crash landing. Of the 307 passengers on the Asiana Airlines flight, 182 people were injured.

Further amateur footage was captured showing passengers and crew evacuating from the aircraft following the crash.

To see amateur footage of the passenger evacuation from the plane click here