China Airlines Flight 140

China Airlines Flight 140
A China Airlines Airbus A300 similar to the one involved in the accident
Accident
Date 26 April 1994
Summary Stall caused by pilot error[1] and poor training
Site Nagoya, Japan
35°14′43″N 136°55′56″E / 35.2453°N 136.9323°E / 35.2453; 136.9323Coordinates: 35°14′43″N 136°55′56″E / 35.2453°N 136.9323°E / 35.2453; 136.9323
Aircraft
Aircraft type Airbus A300B4-622R
Operator China Airlines
Registration B-1816
Flight origin Chiang Kai-Shek Int'l Airport (Now Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport)
Destination Nagoya Airport
Passengers 256
Crew 15
Fatalities 264
Injuries 7
Survivors 7

China Airlines Flight 140 was a regularly scheduled passenger flight from Chiang Kai-shek International Airport (now Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport) serving Taipei, Taiwan, to Nagoya Airport in Nagoya, Japan.[2]

On 26 April 1994, the Airbus A300B4-622R was completing a routine flight and approach, when, just seconds before landing at Nagoya Airport, it slammed into the ground, killing 264 of the 271 people on board.

To date, the accident remains the deadliest accident in the history of China Airlines, and the second-deadliest aviation accident on Japanese soil, behind Japan Airlines Flight 123.[3]

Accident

On 26 April 1994, the Airbus A300B4-622R was completing a routine flight and approach, when, just before landing at Nagoya Airport, the first officer (copilot) inadvertently selected the takeoff/go-around setting (also known as a TO/GA), which tells the autopilot to raise the throttle position to the same as take offs and go-arounds.[1]

The crew attempted to correct the situation, manually reducing the throttles and pushing the yoke forward. However, they did not disconnect the autopilot, which was still acting on the inadvertent go-around command it had been given, so it increased its own efforts in reaction to overcome the yoke forward being enacted by the pilot. The autopilot followed its procedures and moved the horizontal stabilizer to its full nose-up position. The pilots, realizing the landing must be aborted, then knowingly executed a go-around, pulling back on the yoke and adding to the nose-up attitude that the autopilot was already trying to execute. The resulting extreme nose-up attitude, combined with decreasing airspeed due to insufficient thrust, resulted in an aerodynamic stall.[1] With insufficient altitude to recover, the aircraft crashed into the ground.

Of the 271 people on board (15 crew and 256 passengers), only 7 passengers survived.

The crash, which destroyed the aircraft (delivered less than 3 years earlier in 1991), was primarily attributed to crew error for their failure to correct the controls as well as the airspeed.[1] Nine months earlier, Airbus had advised its customers to make a modification to the air flight system that would fully disengage the autopilot "when certain manual controls input is applied on the control wheel in GO-AROUND mode",[4] which would have included the yoke-forward movement the pilots made on this accident flight. The accident aircraft was scheduled to only receive the update the next time it required a more substantial service break, because "China Airlines judged that the modifications were not urgent".[4] These factors were deemed contributing incidents to the crash, after the primary failure of the pilots to take control of the situation once it began.[1]

Passengers

The passengers included 153 Japanese and 63 Taiwanese, 55 others were from various countries other than Taiwan or Japan.[5] Most of the Japanese were returning from package tours.[3]

History of the flight

Flight 140 seat map

The flight took off from Chiang Kai-shek International Airport at 16:53 Taiwan Standard Time bound for Nagoya Airport. At the controls were captain Wang Lo-chi (Chinese: 王樂琦; pinyin: Wáng Lèqí) and first officer Chuang Meng-jung (莊孟容; Zhuāng Mèngróng).[6][7] The en-route flight was uneventful; the descent started at 19:47, and the airplane passed the outer marker at 20:12. Just 3 nautical miles (5.6 km) from the runway threshold at 1,000 feet (300 m) AGL, the airplane levelled off for about 15 seconds and continued descending until about 500 feet (150 m) where there were two bursts of thrust applied in quick succession and the airplane was nose up in a steep climb. Airspeed dropped quickly, the airplane stalled, and struck the ground at 20:15:45. 31-year-old Noriyasu Shirai, a survivor, said that a flight attendant announced that the plane would crash after the aircraft stalled.[8] Sylvanie Detonio, who had survived to 27 April, said that passengers received no warning prior to the crash.[5] All passengers who survived the accident were seated in rows 7 through 15.

On 27 April 1994, officials said there were 10 survivors (including a 3-year-old) and that a Filipino, two Taiwanese, and seven Japanese survived.[5] By 6 May, only seven remained alive, including three children.[8] A doctor expressed surprise at the survival of two of the children.[9]

Court proceedings

Japanese prosecutors declined to pursue charges of professional negligence on the airline's senior management as it was "difficult to call into question the criminal responsibility of the four individuals because aptitude levels achieved through training at the carrier were similar to those at other airlines." The pilots could not be prosecuted since they died in the accident.[10]

A class action suit was filed against China Airlines and Airbus Industrie for compensation. In December 2003, the Nagoya District Court ordered China Airlines to pay a combined 5 billion yen to 232 people, but cleared Airbus of liability. Some of the bereaved and survivors felt that the compensation was inadequate and a further class action suit was filed and ultimately settled in April 2007 when the airline apologized for the accident and provided additional compensation.[11]

Software upgrade

There had been earlier "out-of-trim incidents" with the Airbus A300-600R.[4] Airbus had the company that made the flight control computer produce a modification to the air flight system that would disengage the autopilot "when certain manual controls input is applied on the control wheel in GO-AROUND mode".[4] This modification was first available in September 1993, and the aircraft that had crashed had been scheduled to receive the upgrade.[4] The aircraft had not received the update at the time of the crash because "China Airlines judged that the modifications were not urgent".[4]

Aftermath

On 3 May 1994, the Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA) of the Republic of China (Taiwan) ordered China Airlines to modify the flight control computers following Airbus's notice of the modification.[4] On 7 May 1994, the CAA ordered China Airlines to provide supplementary training and a re-evaluation of proficiency to all A300-600R pilots.[4]

On 26 April 2014, 300 mourners gathered in Kasugai, Aichi Prefecture for a memorial to the crash.[12]

See also

  • China Airlines Flight 676, another crash involving a CAL Airbus A300 during the 1990s, which also occurred on final approach.
  • Aeroflot Flight 593, another plane crash occurred the previous month where the pilots failed to understand the plane's systems.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 "Nagoya A300 Accident Report". Sunnyday.mit.edu. Retrieved 26 April 2013.
  2. ↑ China Airlines is based in Taiwan. Air China is the standard-bearer for the People's Republic of China.
  3. 1 2 Pollack, Andrew. "261 When a Flight From Taiwan Crashes in Japan." The New York Times. 27 April 1994, Retrieved on 17 June 2011.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Nakao, Masayuki. "China Airlines Airbus A300-600R (Flight 140) Missed Landing and Goes Up in flame at Nagoya Airport" (Archive) Japan Science and Technology Agency. Retrieved on 25 December 2008. Descent path (Archive), Primary scenario (Archive)
  5. 1 2 3 Thurber, David. "261 in crash of China Airlines Airbus in Japan." Associated Press at Houston Chronicle. Wednesday 27 April 1994. A14. Retrieved on 14 June 2009.
  6. ↑ Landers, Peter (1 May 1994). "'It's over, it's over'/Recorder details cockpit panic aboard doomed plane". Houston Chronicle. Associated Press. p. A30. Archived from the original on 2011-05-21. Retrieved 25 April 2013.
  7. ↑ "華航名古屋空難 四人獲不起訴." Liberty Times. Tuesday 10 April 2001 (90th year of the Republic, 中華民國90年4月10日 星期二). Retrieved on 25 July 2012.
  8. 1 2 "China Air co-pilot over limit for DWI." Associated Press at Houston Chronicle. Friday 6 May 1994. A26. Retrieved on 22 March 2009.
  9. ↑ "Doctor amazed that boy survived China Airlines crash." Fort Worth Star-Telegram. 28 April 1994. Retrieved on 30 December 2008.
  10. ↑ "China Airlines officials again avoid charges over 1994 crash" (Archive). The Japan Times. Tuesday 10 April 2001. Retrieved on 25 December 2008.
  11. ↑ "Kin settle over 1994 China Air Nagoya crash" (Archive). The Japan Times. Friday 20 April 2007. Retrieved on 25 December 2008.
  12. ↑ Jiji Press, "’94 China Air crash remembered" (Archive), Japan Times, 28 April 2014
  • Air Disaster, Vol. 3, by Macarthur Job, Aerospace Publications Pty. Ltd. (Australia), 1998 ISBN 1-875671-34-X, pp. 139–155.
  • Official report from the Japanese Aircraft Accidents Investigation Commission (In Japanese) (English translation)
  • Failure Knowledge Database on this accident
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