China Airlines Flight 140
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Categories: Airliner crashes caused by pilot error | History of Taiwan | Aviation accidents and incidents in 1994 | Aviation accidents and incidents in Japan
China Airlines Flight 140 was a route from Taipei, Taiwan, Republic of China to Nagoya, Japan. On April 26, 1994, the Airbus A300 on the route was due to land at Nagoya Airport. The Airbus A300 was completing a routine flight and approach, however just before landing, the First Officer pressed the Take Off/Go-Around button (also known as a TOGA) which raises the throttle position to the same as take offs and go-arounds. Pilot Wang Lo-chi and copilot Chuang Meng-jung,[1] attempted to correct the situation by manually reducing the throttles and pushing the yoke downwards. The autopilot then acted against these inputs (as it is programmed to do when the TOGA button is activated), causing the plane to have a very nose-high attitude. This nose-high attitude, combined with decreasing airspeed due to insufficient thrust, resulted in an aerodynamic stall of the aircraft. With insufficient altitude to recover from this condition, the subsequent crash killed 264 (15 crew and 249 passengers, including 2 infants) of the 271 (15 crew and 256 passengers, including 2 infants) people aboard. All passengers who survived the incident were seated at the starboard side of the aircraft in coach class. The crash which destroyed the plane (delivered less than 3 years earlier in 1991) was attributed to crew error for their failure to correct the controls as well as the airspeed.
PassengersMost of the passengers consisted of Taiwanese and Japanese; 153 Japanese and 101 non-Japanese were on the flight. Two infants were on the flight.[2] Chronology of the flightThe flight took off from Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport at 17:53 (Japanese Summer Time) bound for Nagoya Airport. The en-route flight was uneventful and the descent started at 19:47, and the airplane passed the outer marker at 20:12. Just 3 nm from the runway threshold at 1000 feet AGL, the airplane levelled off for about 15 seconds and continued descending until about 500 feet where there were two burst of thrust applied in quick succession and the airplane was nose up in a steep climb. Airspeed dropped quickly, the airplane stalled, the nose dropped. The captain tried to pull back on the control column but was unsuccessful and the airplane 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.[3] Sylvanie Detonio, who had survived by April 27, said that passengers received no warning prior to the crash.[2] By April 27, 1994 officials said there were ten survivors (including a 3-year old) and that a Filipino, two Taiwanese, and seven Japanese survived.[2] By May 6 seven remained alive, including three children.[3] Court proceedings
Aftermath
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