Josh Fox galvanized the U.S. anti-fracking movement with his incendiary 2010 documentary "Gasland." Now he's back with a sequel — and this time, he's targeting an audience of just one.

"We want the president to watch the movie, and we want him to meet with the people who are in it," says Fox, whose "Gasland Part II" makes its HBO debut Monday.

He contends President Barack Obama's professed support of drilling and fracking for natural gas ignores the environmental and public health toll of the drilling boom: "It looks like he's really sincere and earnest in his desire to take on climate change, but he's got the completely wrong information and thus the completely wrong plan."

A typically bold statement from Fox, who's emerged as one of the nation's most visible and outspoken foes of the natural gas drilling industry.

Having made his name as an avant-garde theater director in New York City, Fox took an interest in drilling after a gas company approached him in 2008 about leasing his family's wooded 20-acre spread in Milanville, Pa., near the Delaware River. What resulted was "Gasland," a polemic that argued energy companies are turning whole communities into toxic industrial wastelands.

"Part II" covers a lot of the same ground as the Emmy-winning and Oscar-nominated original, as Fox takes his banjo and camera on the road again to interview residents who say their air and water were contaminated by drilling. Beleaguered homeowners demonstrate how they can light their methane-laced tap water on fire — same as in "Gasland" — though the pyrotechnics in "Part II" are more spectacular.

What's new here is the focus on what Fox sees as the drilling industry's corrupting influence on politicians and regulators. In "Gasland Part II," the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is cast in the role of protector and defender. The agency starts to hold the industry to account for contaminating heavily drilled neighborhoods in Dimock, Pa.; Parker County, Texas; and Pavillion, Wyo. Then the drillers get to work, buying off politicians who, in turn, force the EPA to back off. Meanwhile, Obama's 2012 State of the Union address sets the tone for an election-year policy shift that replaces science with political expediency.

Fox portrays an industry that is shadowy and malevolent, the power behind the throne of government.

"I felt like I could see it: a horizontal well bore, drilled down into the earth, snaking underneath the Congress, shooting money up through the chamber at such high pressure that it blew the top off of our democracy," he narrates. "Another layer of contamination due to fracking, not the water, not the air, but our government."

Of course, the industry doesn't see it that way. Energy companies call Fox an extremist who spreads lies and misinformation about fracking, the technique that's allowed drilling companies to extract huge volumes of natural gas from rock formations deep underground.

"The real reason that shale development has expanded is not because of some nefarious plot on the part of industry leaders wearing black robes," writes Steve Everley of Energy In Depth, an industry-funded PR group. "Rather, it's because people across the United States have recognized that there are massive environmental and economic benefits to be reaped. ... Both political parties are pushing for increased responsible natural gas production, and it's because of the facts, not because they've been 'captured' by Corporate America."

Attitudes and positions about fracking have only hardened since the original "Gasland." Anti-drilling activists and Big Gas tend to view the other with profound distrust, and there is little common ground.

But the reality is more complicated than either side would probably care to admit.

Landowners have become overnight millionaires, businesses catering to the gas industry have boomed and cheap gas has lowered utility bills. Some climate scientists say the rapid conversion of coal-fired power plants to natural gas has helped reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This is a side of the shale gas revolution that "Gasland Part II" ignores.

Yet it's also true that drilling has contaminated residential water wells and brought incredible truck traffic to rural roads never designed to handle it. Some residents have complained about underhanded industry leasing tactics; others assert that gas drilling has made them sick.

The industry's typical response? Gloss over problems or deny them outright.

Driving home the point, "Part II" plays audio from an industry conference in Texas at which a drilling company official encourages the use of military-style psychological operations, or PSYOPS, to counteract anti-fracking fervor. At the same conference, another company's PR rep urges his colleagues to read the military's counterinsurgency field manual "because we are dealing with an insurgency" — namely, anti-drilling residents and environmentalists.

Fox said the industry has smeared homeowners who dared to speak up about their ruined water or ill health, employing tactics used by the tobacco industry decades ago to mislead the public about the dangers of smoking.

It's no wonder environmental activists and industry can't bridge the divide, he said.

"I don't see a middle ground. What we're talking about here is a force of people who are trying desperately to change the world, and a fossil fuel industry that is trying desperately to keep ruling it. I don't know what a middle ground would be," Fox said.

Beyond "Gasland Part II," the filmmaker is working on a short documentary about what he calls an "epidemic of illness" among gas industry workers. Longer term, he said, he intends to move on to broader issues of climate and sustainability.

And then there's that meeting with the president.

"I'm hoping for a call one of these days," Fox said.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- After nearly 11 hours in the air, the passengers and crew aboard a jumbo jetliner traveling from Seoul to San Francisco were looking forward to a quick and uneventful landing as Asiana Airlines Flight 214 approached the airport from over San Francisco Bay. What they got instead, without a word of warning, was terror, panic and confusion.

The Boeing 777 slammed into the runway on Saturday morning, breaking off its tail and catching fire before slumping to a stop that allowed the lucky ones to flee down emergency slides into thick smoke and a trail of debris. Firefighters doused the flames that burned through the fuselage with foam and water, and police officers on the ground threw utility knives up to crew members so they could cut the seat belts of those who remained trapped as rescue crews removed the injured.

By the time the 307 people on the flight all were accounted for several hours later, two people found outside the wreckage had been confirmed dead and 182 transported to area hospitals. But as harrowing as the crash was, survivors and witnesses were just as stunned to learn that the toll of deaths and serious injuries wasn't much higher.

"When you heard that explosion, that loud boom and you saw the black smoke...you just thought, my god, everybody in there is gone," said Ki Siadatan, who lives a few miles away from San Francisco International Airport and watched the plane's "wobbly" and "a little bit out of control" approach from his balcony. "My initial reaction was I don't see how anyone could have made it."

Vedpal Singh, who was sitting in the middle of the aircraft and survived the crash with his family, said there was no forewarning from the pilot or any crew members before the plane touched down hard and he heard a loud sound.

"We knew something was horrible wrong," said Singh, who suffered a fractured collarbone and had his arm was in a sling.

"It's miraculous we survived," he said.

A visibly shaken Singh said the plane went silent before people tried to get out anyway they could. His 15-year-old son said luggage tumbled from the overhead bins. The entire incident lasted about 10 seconds.

Another passenger, Benjamin Levy, 39, said it looked to him that the plane was flying too low and too close to the bay as it approached the runway. Levy, who was sitting in an emergency exit row, said he felt the pilot try to lift the jet up before it crashed, and thinks the maneuver might have saved some lives.

"Everybody was screaming. I was trying to usher them out," he recalled of the first seconds after the landing. "I said, 'Stay calm, stop screaming, help each other out, don't push.'"

San Francisco Fire Department Chief Joanne Hayes-White said she did not know the ages or genders of the two people who died, but said they were found on "the exterior" of the plane. "Having surveyed that area, we're lucky that there hasn't been a greater loss," she said.

Airport spokesman Doug Yakel said 49 people were critically injured and 132 had less significant injuries.

The flight originated in Shanghai, China, and stopped over in Seoul, South Korea, before coming to San Francisco, airport officials said. The airline said there were 16 crew members aboard, and the 291 passengers included 77 South Koreans, 141 Chinese, 61 Americans and one Japanese citizen. The nationalities of the remaining passengers weren't immediately known.

San Mateo County Coroner Robert Foucrault told the San Jose Mercury News the two dead passengers were 16-year-old females and that one appeared to have been thrown from the rear of the plane when the tail broke off, and the other was found near the wreckage. The official Chinese news agency Xinhuah, quoting the Chinese Consulate in San Francisco, said both victims were from China.

At least 70 Chinese students and teachers were on the plane heading to summer camps, according to education authorities in China.

Based on witness accounts in the news and video of the wreckage, Mike Barr, a former military pilot and accident investigator who teaches aviation safety at the University of Southern California, said it appeared the plane approached the runway too low and something may have caught the runway lip — the seawall at the end of the runway.

San Francisco is one of several airports around the country that border bodies of water that have walls at the end of their runways to prevent planes that overrun a runway from ending up in the water.

Since the plane was about to land, its landing gear would have already been down, Barr said. It's possible the landing gear or the tail of the plane hit the seawall, he said. If that happened, it would effectively slam the plane into the runway, he said.

Noting that some witnesses reported hearing the plane's engines rev up just before the crash, Barr said that would be consistent with a pilot who realized at the last minute that the plane was too low and was increasing power to the engines to try to increase altitude. Barr said he could think of no reason why a plane would come in to land that low.

Kate Belding was out jogging just before 11:30 a.m. on a path across the water from the airport when she noticed the plane approaching the runway in a way that "just didn't look like it was coming in quite right."

"Then all of a sudden I saw what looked like a cloud of dirt puffing up and then there was a big bang and it kind of looked like the plane maybe bounced (as it neared the ground)," she said. "I couldn't really tell what happened, but you saw the wings going up and (in) a weird angle."

Four pilots were aboard the plane and they rotated on a two-person shift during the flight, according to The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport in South Korea.

The two who piloted the plane at the time of crash were Lee Jeong-min and Lee Gang-guk and they are both veteran pilots, a ministry official said on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak to media.

Asiana is a South Korean airline, second in size to national carrier Korean Air. It has recently tried to expand its presence in the United States, and joined the Star Alliance, which is anchored in the U.S. by United Airlines.

The 777-200 is a long-range plane from Boeing. The twin-engine aircraft is often used for flights from one continent to another because it can travel 12 hours or more without refueling.

The most notable accident involving a 777 occurred on Jan. 17, 2008 at Heathrow Airport in London. British Airways Flight 28 landed hard about 1,000 feet short of the runway and slid onto the start of the runway. The impact broke the 777-200's landing gear. There were 47 injuries, but no fatalities.

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Lowy reported from Washington, D.C. Associated Press writers Jason Dearen and Sudhin Thanawala in San Francisco, Scott Mayerowitz in New York and Pauline Arrillaga in Phoenix contributed to this report.

An aerial view of an Asiana Airlines Boeing 777 plane is seen after it crashed while landing at San Francisco International Airport in California on July 6, 2013. REUTERS/Jed Jacobsohn

By Jack Kim and Hyunjoo Jin

SEOUL (Reuters) - Asiana Airlines, the South Korean carrier whose Boeing 777 crashed while landing at San Francisco airport on Saturday, had been trying to clean up a tarnished safety record that included two other fatal crashes in its 25-year history.

One of the pilots of flight 214, Lee Jeong-min, is a veteran who has spent his career at Asiana. He was among four pilots on the plane who rotated in two-person shifts during the 10 hour-plus flight, a senior Asiana official told Reuters.

"The pilot's name is Lee Jeong-min, and (he is) a veteran pilot with long experience," said the official, who requested anonymity. "Our investigation committee is looking into the accident in San Francisco," he said.

Lee, in his late 40s, had 12,387 hours of flying experience, including 3,220 hours on the Boeing 777, according to the Transport Ministry in Seoul.

A second pilot on board the aircraft, Lee Kang-kook, had 9,793 hours flying experience and 43 hours on the 777.

The ministry said earlier that the aircraft's fuselage appeared to have hit the ground, sending the plane off the runway and causing massive damage to the body of the jet.

Asiana, South Korea's junior carrier, is a member of the Star Alliance with 91 international passenger routes, 28 cargo and 14 domestic routes. It operates a fleet of 80 aircraft.

Two years ago, one of its 747 cargo jets bound for Shanghai crashed into the sea off Korea's Jeju island after taking off from Incheon airport. Two pilots on board were killed in the crash, which was blamed on mechanical problems.

In 1993, an Asiana domestic flight from Seoul crashed in driving wind and extremely poor visibility in a botched landing attempt, killing 66 people and injuring 44.

An inquiry found pilot error was the cause of that crash when the plane began a descent while it was still passing over a mountain peak.

Asiana was founded in 1988 by the Kumho Asiana transport and construction conglomerate at a time when South Korea wanted to boost its international appeal as an emerging economic power.

It launched its first international route two years later with flights to Tokyo and Hong Kong, then added flights to Southeast Asia and Los Angeles the following year, gradually expanding destinations to Europe and the Americas.

Asiana has been serving only six U.S. cities and four in Europe, compared with the 21 routes it flies to Japan and more than 30 to China.

With almost 30 mid- to long-range Airbus A350s on order, it has been hoping to meet soaring long-range passenger demand. Six A380 planes are also on order.

Asiana and Korean Air have been vying to increase U.S. routes to cope with rising demand after South Korea was included in the U.S. visa waiver program in 2008.

The two South Korean carriers' fleets were previously flown mainly by former air force pilots, but they have been gradually adding more civilians to their cockpits. According to the Transport Ministry, the ratio is now roughly equal.

(Additional reporting by Ju-min Park; Editing by Paul Tait)