© ReutersUS National Transportation Safety Board investigators work at the scene of the Asiana Airlines Flight 214 crash site at San Francisco International Airport in San Francisco, California.
One of two Chinese schoolgirls who died in a plane crash in San Francisco may have survived the disaster only to be run over by a fire engine or ambulance.
An investigation into how the teenager died began as it emerged that the plane's pilot Lee Kang-kuk, 46, was training and in the process of getting a licence for the Boeing 777, which he was landing at that airport for the first time.
He had logged only 43 hours at the controls on nine flights in that aircraft. More than 180 people were injured, 49 of them seriously, when Asiana Airlines Flight 214 hit a sea wall at the start of the runway, ripping off its tail, on Saturday.
There were 307 passengers and crew on the flight, which originated in Shanghai with a stop in Seoul. The two girls who died were Ye Mengyuan, 16, and Wang Linjia, 17, friends from Zhejiang province heading for a summer camp to improve their English.
One of the girls was found 30ft outside the main section of the plane. A fire department spokesman said: "One of the deceased did have injuries consistent with those of having been run over by a vehicle."
Photographs of the aftermath of the crash showed passengers huddling near the smoking wreckage, some of them wheeling away their suitcases.
Lee Kang-kuk was being supervised in the cockpit by a senior pilot, Lee Jung-min, who was on his first fight as a trainer having received his certificate in June.
He had 3,220 hours in a Boeing 777. Yoon Young-Doo, the head of the airline, said the focus on the pilot's experience was "intolerable" and "contrary to the facts."
He said the pilot was undergoing a "very regular type of training that is done by all other airlines around the world".
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