Asiana Airlines acknowledged for the first time that the "probable cause" of the fatal crash in San Francisco last July was its pilot flying too slow, according to documents federal investigators released today.
However, the airline also said "inconsistencies" in the Boeing 777-200ER's autothrottle contributed to the crash. The airline's positions submitted earlier this month were part of hundreds of pages of documents the National Transportation Safety Board will consider while investigating the crash that killed three passengers and injured more than 200.
Asiana said the plane's navigation equipment "led the crew to believe that the autothrottle was maintaining the airspeed set by the crew" and instead the equipment "disabled the aircraft's minimum airspeed protection." The airline also said test pilots had trouble landing under the same conditions in simulators.
