KTVU Producers Fired for Naming Asiana SF Crash Pilot as 'Sum Ting Wong,' 'Wi Tu Lo' (VIDEO)
Three KTVU producers have been fired after they oversaw a mistake in which their broadcast identified the pilots of the ill-fated Asiana Airlines crash with fake, racist names.
The three KTVU producers who have been released from their contracts at the network include investigative producer Roland DeWolk, special projects producer Cristina Gastelu and producer Brad Belstock.
According to a San Francisco Chronicle report, all three producers were fired after an internal investigation took place into the embarrassing July 12 broadcast.
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The network has been in damage control since posting the names of the four pilots flying the Asiana flight as "Captain Sum Ting Wong," "Wi Tu Lo," "Ho Lee Fuk," and "Bang Ding Ow."
It was not long before the network realized that it had provided the public with false, and racist names, and they quickly issued an on-air apology.
The network has also followed that quick apology up with official statements on social media sites Twitter and Facebook, and has also issued an official apology on their website.
The network has insisted that none of its staff made up the names, and they received the information from the NTSB - The National Transportation Safety Board.
In response the NTSB has released a statement blaming one of its interns for confirming the incorrect names to KTVU.
Even though KTVU has pointed to the information as coming from NTSB, it has stated that it accepts "full responsibility" for not checking the information and for mistakenly broadcasting the potentially offensive names.
The KTVU statement says: "We made several mistakes when we received this information. First, we never read the names out loud, phonetically sounding them out. Then, during our phone call to the NTSB where the person confirmed the spellings of the names, we never asked that person to give us their position with the agency. We heard this person verify the information without questioning who they were and then rushed the names on our noon newscast."
Here is a video showing the live broadcast from KTVU announcing the fake names that sparked the controversy and has led to the firing of three producers:
