An Asiana spokeswoman told AFP in Seoul it was checking Japanese news reports that the flight was approaching the runway at a lower altitude than normal before it grazed the communications tower near the runway. Tuesday's accident carries echoes of an Asiana flight that crashed in San Francisco in July, 2013, killing three people and leaving 182 injured. US investigators concluded that a mismanaged approach for landing in a highly automated cockpit was the probable cause of the accident, in which a Boeing 777 clipped a sea wall with its landing gear, then crashed and burst into flames.