Japanese public prosecutors have dropped efforts to indict China Airlines (CAL)and Airbus Industrie over an A300 crash at Nagoya, Japan, in 1994, which claimed 264 lives out of 272 on board, according to Airbus representatives in Japan.
Three damages suits filed against both the airline and the manufacturer by the victims' next of kin and survivors are likely to continue for up to five more years.
Three groups of victims' families are trying to claim $270 million in compensation for alleged airline negligence and aircraft design deficiencies. A fourth group has accepted compensation from CAL under the Warsaw Convention.
Prosecutors at the Nagoya District Court have now concluded that the accident was caused by pilot error, when the cockpit crew tried to land the aircraft manually, unaware that the autopilot was set to go around. Charges were to be brought against six CAL officials, including the aircraft's deceased cockpit crew.
CAL flight 140 from Taipei crashed on 26 April, 1994. The subsequent crash investigators' report, published in 1996, cited pilot error, but also accused the airline of poor training and queried the design of the aircraft's flight control system.
The A300's crew failed to disengage the autopilot's go-around mode, trying instead to override it manually by pushing the aircraft's nose down. The system compensated by pulling the nose up until the aircraft stalled and crashed.
Japanese investigators criticised the absence of any cockpit warning to indicate that the aircraft was flying in the wrong mode. The Taiwanese Civil Aeronautics Administration also claimed that Airbus failed to notify its customers that a software modification allowing an override by pilot pressure on the stick had already been made available before the crash, as a result of earlier incidents.
Source: Flight International
