The National Transportation Safety Board apologized Friday evening for its erroneous confirmation of "inaccurate and offensive" names of pilots on the Asiana Airlines jet that crashed at the San Francisco airport on Saturday.
The NTSB said that a summer intern, acting outside of the scope of his authority, had erroneously confirmed those names in response to an inquiry from a media outlet.
The board does not generally release or confirm names of such crew members to the media, it added.
"We work hard to ensure that only appropriate factual information regarding an investigation is released and deeply regret today's incident," the board said in its statement.
The NTSB's apology and explanation came after San Francisco Bay Area station KTVU reported the fake racist names on the air earlier in the day on its noon broadcast.
The station apologized thereafter, noting that the NTSB had confirmed the names. The segment on KTVU's broadcast, however, had gone viral online.
"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," the station said.
It was unclear where the list of names came from originally.
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