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Old 2nd September 2007 | 22:03
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ChristiaanJ
 
Joined: Jan 2005
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From: France
Maybe not one of the "10 most influencial aircraft accidents".
But one I will never forget is the crash of EA flight 401 in the Everglades, December 29, 1972.
One of the contributing factors was that the aircraft had inadvertently been knocked out of Alt Hold and into CWS mode, without this being clearly shown to BOTH pilots. As a result, the aircraft went into a shallow descent and struck the ground.
The contents of this link cover the story to some extent:
http://www.airdisaster.com/special/special-ea401.shtml
In my case.... I was working on the Concorde flight test programme at that time. We got the preliminary data within a few weeks, and we looked at the Concorde systems. And yes, under identical circumstances, it could happen on Concorde too. We put in the necessary modifications in soon afterwards.
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