| - | ACCIDENT DETAILS |
| Date: | October 31, 1996 |
| Time: | 0827 |
| Location: | Sao Paolo, Brazil |
| Operator: | TAM (Brazil) |
| Flight #: | 402 |
| Route: | Sao Paulo - Rio de Janiero |
| AC Type: | Fokker 100 |
| Registration: | PT-MRK |
| cn / ln: | 11440 |
| Aboard: | 95 (passengers:89 crew:6) |
| Fatalities: | 95 (passengers:89 crew:6) |
| Ground: | 3 |
| Summary: | The aircraft crashed shortly after takeoff into a residential area striking a building. Uncommanded deployment of the thrust reverser on the right engine caused the plane to roll right and lose control. The plane had an automatic system to protect against this situation, but what it did was to simply bring the throttle lever for the affected engine back to idle, without telling the pilot why. Because Fokker had assessed this scenario as extremely improbable, the airline had not trained the pilots for it. They did get an alarm but what it said was only that the auto-throttle was not usable, so they naturally assumed that it was the auto-throttle moving the throttle lever wrongly, and pressed it forward again -- so hard that the cable broke. |
Sources
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