China Airlines Flight 140 crash site

China Airlines Flight 140 was a regularly scheduled passenger flight from Chiang Kai-shek International Airport in Taipei, Taiwan, to Nagoya Airport in Nagoya, Japan. On 26 April 1994, the Airbus A300B4-622R was completing a routine flight and approach, when, just before landing at Nagoya Airport, 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 and copilot Chuang Meng-jung 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 nose to pitch up sharply. 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 accident were seated in rows 7 through 15.