Crime & Safety

Chinese Friends Perish Together At SFO

San Mateo County Coroner investigating whether one of victims might have survived crash but been run over by an ambulance.

Written by Crystal Tai

The two Chinese students killed in the Asiana Airlines plane crash Saturday  were close friends on their way to an English-learning summer camp in Southern California, according to a feature story on Sina.com, a well-known Chinese
news website. 

As investigators try to find the cause of the crash, San Mateo County Coroner Robert Foucrault disclosed that he was investigating whether one of the two teenagers survived the crash but was run over by a rescue vehicle rushing to aid victims as the plane began to burn, according to the Associated Press. 

The sina.com story includes profiles of the two victims, Wang Linjia and Ye Mengyuan, both students of Jiangshan High School, the most renowned high school in Quzhou City in China's eastern Zhejiang province. 

Ye was born on June 27, 1997, and Wang on Dec 13, 1996, according to what Sina.com reported from Asiana Airlines.

The Sina.com story describes Ye as the class representative of her English and physics classes. She played the piano and practiced Latin dances in her spare time. It describes Wang as a popular voice-over talent at the school radio and TV station. 

Both students were among the 10 best emcees of school events proclaimed by their school last year.

Wang's mother told Sina.com that Ye and Wang had been good friends for years, attending the same middle school and the same high school. The mother indicated in the sina.com story that she would assume the two students were sitting together on the Asiana flight when it crashed.

The two close friends were on their way to an English-learning summer camp at the West Valley Christian School in West Hills, CA, according to ABC News in Los Angeles. (Read more about the Southern California response on Patch here.)

They were among the 30 students and four teachers from their school on the Asiana flight. The Chinese Ministry of Education has told officials that there were a total of 70 people on the flight who were teachers or students from China, including the 34 mentioned above.  

According to the sina.com story, the two girls did micro-blogging on Sina.com Weibo, which is China's equivalent to Twitter.  Wang's last micro blog only contains one English word, according to the story: "Go." 


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