UPDATE: NTSB Summer Intern Played Stunning Hoax on KTVU-TV In Naming Asiana Pilots

Written by L.A. Chung  and Stacie Chan 
Editor's Note: Patch has updated this article with a statement from the NTSB about a summer intern who gave out incorrect and offensive information about the names of the Asiana Airlines pilots for unknown reasons.

TV News channel KTVU wrongly reported the names of the pilots on Asiana Flight 214 with stereotypical spellings of fake Chinese names, which when spoken, were to approximate "Something wrong" and "Way too low," among others. Friday, apparently unaware it was an offensive parody. 

But that wasn't all that was so jaw-dropping, it turns out.

On Friday afternoon, KTVU apologized for its error and the National Transportation Safety Board also issued an apology with a stunning admission: A summer intern was responsible.

The NTSB issued the following statement on the erroneous confirmation of crew names:

"The National Transportation Safety Board apologizes for inaccurate and offensive names that were mistakenly confirmed as those of the pilots of Asiana flight 214, which crashed at San Francisco International Airport on July 6.

"Appropriate actions will be taken to ensure that such a serious error is not repeated."

This YouTube video on Friday catches anchor Tori Campbell reading the names aloud and failing to realize they were made up.

Campbell said on air:
"KTVU has just learned the names of the four pilots who were on board of the flight. The NTSB has confirmed these are the names of the pilots on board Fight 214 when it crashed. We are working to determine exactly what roles each of them played during the landing on Saturday.
It had been a stunning development, as the NTSB, through Chairwoman Deborah A.P. Hersman, has been meticulous in its daily in-person communications with the news media throughout the agency's time in the Bay Area. The NTSB departed San Francisco the day before the KTVU error, however, on July 11, and a staff member of the station had phoned the NTSB for information about the pilots' names.

In KTVU's apology, the station said it failed to perform several basic practices of sound journalism, exacerbated by its rush to get the information on air:

"We made several mistakes when we received this information. First, we never read the names out loud, phonetically sounding them out.

"Then, during our phone call to the NTSB where the person confirmed the spellings of the names, we never asked that person to give us their (sic) position with the agency.

"We heard this person verify the information without questioning who they (sic) were and then rushed the names on our noon newscast." 
The station said it accepts full responsibility for the mistake, even with the NTSB statement.

“We sincerely regret the error and took immediate action to apologize, both in the newscast where the mistake occurred, as well as on our website and social media sites,” said Tom Raponi, KTVU/KICU Vice President & General Manager. “Nothing is more important to us than having the highest level of accuracy and integrity, and we are reviewing our procedures to ensure this type of error does not happen again.”