District attorneys have decided not to press charges against the firefighter who hit and killed a 16-year-old girl with a fire truck when responding to an airplane crash at San Francisco International Airport in July, according to the Associated Press.
Elyse Duckett, a San Francisco firefighter, was responding to the crash of an Asiana Airlines Boeing 777 that was burning on the tarmac when the truck she was driving struck and killed Ye Mengyuan. Investigators believe that Ye was covered in the foam that was being used to put out the fire and lying on the tarmac, according to the Associated Press.
"This was a dramatically chaotic situation," San Mateo County District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe said while announcing the decision not to press charges. "It was not a tough conclusion to reach."
Asiana flight 214 crashed on July 6 when it was travelling too slowly on approach for landing and struck a sea wall. Of the 307 people on board the flight 304 of them were able to survive; although 180 people were injured, according to the BBC.
Joanne Hayes-White, the chief of the San Francisco Fire Department, said that Ye's death was a "tragic accident," according to the Associated Press.
"If not for the professional rescue, triage, treatment and transport operations that were conducted by all involved agencies, it is likely that there would have been a greater loss of life," Hayes-White said.
Anthony Tarricone, an attorney representing the family of Ye, said that he wasn't surprised that criminal charges weren't filed but that he still plans on taking legal action, according to the Los Angeles Times.
"This was not the kind of event that should result in criminal charges against individual firefighters," Tarricone said. "I think it's obvious to all that it was a tragic accident, but it was an accident that never should have happened."
