Survivor shares experience of visiting crash site

BURLINGAME, Calif. (KGO) -- Even though San Francisco International Airport officials say operations should soon be back to normal, survivors of Saturday's crash will take much longer to heal.

Wendell Hom says he didn't hesitate when he was given the chance to go back to the site of the Asiana Airlines Flight 214 crash at San Francisco International Airport.

Hom says he learned the National Transportation Safety Board organized the bus trip at the request of the two families whose daughters were killed in the crash. They were given an hour by themselves before the survivors joined them.

Stepping out onto the runway, Hom says it was the first time he really understood the extent of the damage.

"Looking at that perspective is like wow, how did we actually get out? But we were lucky because the fire didn't spread early," Hom said. "If it did then we wouldn't get out."

But it's what he saw next that left him at a loss for words.

"There were, like, two flags, where the, I guess the girls were found," he said. "And that was just like, you know, kind of, I don't know, like I can't believe like one of them was just like right where pretty much where I exited the plane."

Hom says he was one of the first off the plane and he wasn't hurt.

His lasting memory? He wonders what more he could've done to help those who were injured. And he marvels that so many people were spared.

"It's still amazing, you know, that we actually survived," he said.

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san francisco international airport, plane crash, Asiana Airlines crash, NTSB, peninsula news, jonathan bloom

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