Post date: Jul 16, 2013 7:20:52 PM

911 calls reveal chaos, delays in aftermath of San Francisco plane crash

Updated Fri Jul 12, 2013 7:59am AEST

Tapes of emergency calls made moments after the Asiana plane crash at San Francisco airport reveal panic and confusion, with passengers describing severe injuries and long waits for help.

The Asiana Boeing 777 crashed short of the runway on Saturday, killing two Chinese teenagers and injuring another 180 people.

The California Highway Patrol has now released 11 minutes of 911 call audio tapes.

One man called to say: "Our airplane just crashed upon landing."

The dispatcher asked which runway he was on, and he replied: "I don't know the runway, we literally just ran out of the airplane."

Officials say the call to evacuate the plane was made 90 seconds after the crash, and the first emergency response vehicles arrived 30 seconds later.

Yet some callers reported no help until much later.

We are almost losing a woman here. We're trying to keep her alive. Not one ambulance here on the tarmac.

An unnamed woman speaking to a 911 dispatcher

One woman called to say she had been on the ground for 20 or 30 minutes without seeing an ambulance.

"There are people laying on the tarmac with critical injuries, head injuries," she said.

"We are almost losing a woman here. We're trying to keep her alive. Not one ambulance here on the tarmac."

Another caller said a woman on the runway was "pretty much burned, very severely on the head, and we don't know what to do".

"She is severely burned, she will probably die soon if she doesn't get help," the female caller said.

"Is there any way we can assist her?"

A third woman said she was "on the outskirts ... on the field where the planes are landing".

Photo: The inside of the Asiana plane after the crash (Twitter: @NTSB)

"We have people over here who weren't found," she said.

To one caller, who said he had yet to see a fire truck, the dispatcher said: "We are responding, trust me."

Another, near the end of his call, said he now saw "tons of cops and ambulances coming".

Flight 214 crashed when it clipped a seawall short of the runway, skidding out of control, shredding the tail of the plane and catching fire.

The NTSB has already determined that the plane was travelling well below the target speed necessary for landing.

It has also emerged that the otherwise experienced pilot of the plane, 46-year-old Lee Kang-Kuk, was undergoing his first major training on the Boeing 777.