SAN FRANCISCO—The parents of the late Ye Meng Yuan, have dropped the lawsuit filed against the city of San Francisco in the wrongful death of their 16-year-old daughter.
Yuan was one of the victims who died in Asiana Flight 214; a flight that resulted in the crash landing of a Boeing 777 aircraft at San Francisco International Airport (SFO) on July 6, 2013. Airport surveillance shows that the plane struck a seawall and burst into flames when coming up short of the runway. The crash claimed the lives of three people, and injured over 180 people.
Reports from the National Transportation Safety Board show that Yuan was not wearing her seatbelt at the time of the plane crash, which resulted in her ejection from the aircraft and may have caused her death.
Yuan’s body was hurled on to the ground near the aircraft’s left wing and sprayed by flame-retardant foam before being struck by the San Francisco Fire Department’s fire trucks. Surveillance footage from a fire commander’s helmet indicated that Yuan was struck by two fire trucks, and suffered a blow to the head when hit by the second truck.
Records indicate that one of the trucks had been directed to maneuver around Yuan’s body when she was still visible on the ground. The San Francisco Fire Department called Yuan’s death a tragic accident and apologized for the trucks running her body over.
Firefighters Lt. Christine Emmons and Roger Phillips both claimed to have seen Yuan on the ground, but assumed she was dead without examining her body.
Yuan’s parents, Gan Ye and Xiao Yun Zheng, of the Zhejiang province in China, filed a lawsuit stating that the city allowed their daughter to be in “grave harm” and violated her constitutional rights to life and due process under the law.
The attorney for Ye and Zheng, Gretchen Nelson, stated in the initial wrongful-death lawsuit that firefighters had seen Yuan “lying helpless on the ground, but inexplicably, failed to evaluate her condition, treat her, mark her location, or remove her from the perilous location where she lay curled in the ‘fetal position.’”
Despite their claims, Ye and Zheng dropped the lawsuit against the city on Friday, August 7. Nelson stated with minimal detail that both parties had reached “a confidential settlement on mutually agreeable terms.”
City Attorney Dennis Herrera stated that city officials were grateful for Ye and Zheng’s decision, and that this would “spare everyone involved the added heartache and costs of litigation, which we believed from the beginning to be without legal merit.” Herrera added that the decision to drop the suit showed acknowledgement of the firefighters’ valiant efforts during the tragedy.
According to court records, Asiana Airlines has had 297 claims filed against them from this crash, and currently has 149 claims pending. Nelson continues to represent Ye and Zheng against Asiana Airlines.
The San Francisco News
