It's been over a decade since KTVU — a supposedly professional news operation — broadcast the names "Sum Ting Wong," "Wi Tu Lo," "Ho Lee Fuk," and "Bang Ding Ow" as the pilots of the crashed Asiana Airlines Flight 214. And somehow, in a region where everyone has a podcast and nobody can keep a secret, we still don't definitively know who pulled it off.

Let that sink in. In the age of total digital surveillance, doxxing, and leaked DMs, the architect of the single greatest live-TV prank in Bay Area history remains anonymous. Whoever did this has better operational security than most government agencies — which, honestly, isn't saying much.

Here's what we do know: The names made it onto a KTVU chyron during a live broadcast. An NTSB intern reportedly "confirmed" the fake names when the station called to verify, and that intern was promptly fired. KTVU itself allegedly let go of several producers and staffers, though hard documentation on those firings is thin. One local recalls that anchor Frank Somerville "was never the same after this." That tracks.

The theories are all over the map. Some say it was an inside job — a staffer plugged in placeholder names that never got swapped out before air. Others heard interns were responsible and were terminated immediately. One Bay Area resident offered perhaps the most credible lead of all: "It was a Vietnamese prankster named Phuc Dac Bich." (We can neither confirm nor deny.)

What's truly remarkable is the institutional failure on display. The names passed through writers, producers, a graphics department, and at least one anchor's mouth before anyone thought, "Hey, wait a second." This is what happens when newsrooms operate on autopilot — layers of supposed editorial oversight that function as nothing more than bureaucratic decoration. Sound familiar? It's the same disease that plagues every bloated institution in this city: lots of process, zero accountability.

Meanwhile, someone out there is driving around the Bay with "WITULO" as their license plate, and that person is living their absolute best life.

As one local put it: "That was so wrong, but I can't deny it turned out to be a legendary prank." Fair enough. Some mysteries are better left unsolved.