Watching the news and I realised that it was David Eun, EVP and Head of the Open Innovation Center at Samsung Mobile, that was first to grab his mobile and share a picture with the world following his emergency slide exit from the Asiana Air Boeing 777 that tragically crashed today at San Francisco Airport – the biggest commercial aircraft accident in the Airports 75 year history.

I recognised David as I’d only recently watched this great video interview he gave to Diane Brady at the IDA Ireland sponsored Bloomberg “Next Big Thing Summit” (HatTip: Richard Handford, Editor of Mobile World Live’s health and money channels) in which he outlined how Samsung are totally committed to R&D (last year they spent $10.8 Billion on R&D, filed 5,000 patents and have 60,000 people – 1/4 of their total workforce – working on R&D efforts) and are now looking at partnering and acquiring firms in the connected health application area.

Could you imagine the additional insights that could’ve been had into this unfolding incident and the useful realtime advice that could’ve been shared if Apple (Google, Samsung or a Telco?) had enabled California’s Emergency Medical Services Authority to accept Mobile Video Calls?

We wish David, the crew, passengers, medical and rescue teams a full recovery from this traumatic experience and our deepest condolences, thoughts and prayers are with the families and friends of those who’ve tragically lost their lives.