The loss of life in this accident was tragic but the more that comes out about the how the fake names were actually used by the television station makes you scratch your head. Turns out the television station actually contacted the National Transportation Safety Board who confirmed the names were real.
The station has apologized for the names that turns out were confirmed by a National Transportation Safety Board intern. The station said it erred in not reading aloud the names phonetically before saying them on air, and not asking the position of the person they talked to at the NTSB.
The NTSB also said they were sorry, explaining, "a summer intern acted outside the scope of his authority when he erroneously confirmed the names of the flight crew on the aircraft," the agency said.