SF Fox Station Names Crash Pilots As Ho Lee Fuk, Sum Ting Wong, Wi Tu Lo

As about a million local Asian-Americans likely watched, the midday anchor for San Francisco's Fox affiliate today claimed that the crashed Asiana Airlines pilots were named Ho Lee Fuk, Sum Ting Wong, Wi Tu Lo, and Bang Ding Ow. Gawker reports that KTVU later apologized, claiming that the those racist names were given to them by the National Transportation Safety Board.  The NTSB says the Fox station is full of shit and that they never reveal the names of pilots involved in such incidents.

(Tipped by JMG reader Bill)

UPDATE: The NTSB is backtracking on their earlier denial.

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. 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.

The NTSB does not release or confirm the names of crewmembers or people involved in transportation accidents to the media. We work hard to ensure that only appropriate factual information regarding an investigation is released and deeply regret today's incident. Appropriate actions will be taken to ensure that such a serious error is not repeated.

UPDATE II: But there's more to the story.

However, in a subsequent phone interview with the SFGate’s Jeff Elder, NTSB spokeswoman Kelly Nantel made clear that the names “originated at the media outlet” and that the intern — unaware of the offensive names — was “acting in good faith and trying to be helpful” by confirming names he didn’t know. “The NTSB does not release or confirm the names of crew members or people involved in transportation accidents to the media,” Nantel said.