China Airlines Flight 140 was en route from Taipei, Taiwan to Nagoya, Japan. On 26 April 1994, the Airbus A300 on the route was due to land at Nagoya Airport. The Airbus A300 was completing a routine flight and approach, when, just before landing, the First Officer inadvertently pressed the Takeoff/Go-around button (also known as a TO/GA) which raises the throttle position to the same as take offs and go-arounds.
Pilot Wang Lo-chi (T: 王樂琦, S:王乐琦, P: Wáng Lèqí) and copilot Chuang Meng-jung (T: 莊孟容, S:庄孟容, P: Zhuāng Mèngróng) 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 TO/GA 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) of the 271 (15 crew and 256 passengers) people aboard. All passengers who survived the incident were seated in rows 7 through 15.
The crash which destroyed the aircraft (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.
When it occurred it became the deadliest aviation disaster since the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 in 1988, and it became the deadliest aviation accident in Japan since Japan Airlines Flight 123. It was the second highest death toll of any incident involving an Airbus A300 anywhere in the world after the shootdown of Iran Air Flight 655, until the crash of American Airlines Flight 587 seven years later, which killed 265.
Read more about China Airlines Flight 140: Passengers, Chronology of The Flight, Court Proceedings, Aftermath
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