Image credit: David Eun
Korean carrier Asiana is reported to have been fined $500,000 as a result of last year’s crash in San Francisco.
The US Department of Transportation issued the penalty – the first of its kind – saying the carrier failed to notify family members soon enough after the crash.
The DoT said Asiana lacked translators and personnel trained in crash response.
Three people died and dozens were injured on July 6 when an Asiana aircraft clipped a seawall while landing.
The DoT concluded that some family members had not been contacted two days after the crash, and it took five days to reach the families of all 291 passengers.
US transportation secretary Anthony Foxx said: “The last thing families and passengers should have to worry about at such a stressful time is how to get information from their carrier.”
Many of the families live in South Korea or China, meaning the airline was their main source of information on the crash thousands of miles away.
Federal investigators said Asiana did not actively encourage contact from families, failing to widely publicise a toll-free help line until the day after the crash, Sky News reported.
When family members did call, they were initially put through to a reservations line rather than a crisis hotline.
Asiana spokeswoman Hyomin Lee said: “Asiana provided extensive support to the passengers and their families following the accident and will continue to do so.”