TAROM Flight 371

TAROM Flight 371 was a scheduled international passenger flight from Otopeni International Airport in Romania's capital Bucharest to Brussels Airport in Belgium. On 31 March 1995, the Airbus A310 operating flight 371 entered a steep turn and dive shortly after takeoff, crashing near Balotești in Romania, killing all 60 people on board. The flight was operated by TAROM, the flag carrier of Romania.

Investigation of the crash revealed that a faulty autothrottle had reduced the left engine to idle during climb, and coincidentally the captain had become incapacitated (possibly by a heart attack). The First Officer was unable to respond properly to the situation; according to the French BEA, he had confused the attitude direction indicator on the A310 with the one on the Soviet-built planes he was more accustomed to flying, which was different to that on the A310. It was the deadliest plane crash in TAROM's operational history.

Accident

TAROM Flight 371 commenced take-off at 09:06:44 local time (06:06:44 UTC) from runway 08R, with First Officer Stoi as the pilot flying. The crew knew about a pre-existing anomaly with the thrust levers, with Captain Bătănoiu stating that he would guard the throttles during the climb. Stoi then asked Bătănoiu to retract the flaps and slats. Bătănoiu retracted the flaps, but failed to retract the slats. Noticing this, Stoi asked his captain what was wrong. After Bătănoiu told First Officer Stoi he felt sick, he groaned then fell silent, apparently having lost consciousness. To make matters worse, the plane's left engine moved itself back into idle, resulting in asymmetric thrust as the right engine remained at climb power. Worse still, the speed of the aircraft began to decrease and the aircraft was banking sharply to the left. Preoccupied with trying to wake Bătănoiu, Stoi did not notice the rapidly increasing left roll.

At 09:08:18, the engine thrust asymmetry reached its maximum value of 0.42 and the aircraft was now banking severely to the left at an angle of 45 degrees. When Stoi realized the deteriorating situation, he reacted instinctively and attempted to engage the autopilot but disengaged seconds later with an audible warning and the aircraft began to lose altitude rapidly. Flight 371 began to dive towards the ground with a continuous thrust reduction on engine no. 2. The aircraft rolled as its airspeed continued to increase. Stoi's inexperience with Western style ADIs and the thick cloud cover led him to not know which way the plane was banking and therefore could not apply sufficient corrective action to recover the aircraft. Upon seeing the no. 1 Engine Pressure Ratio (EPR) gauge at 0.95, he cried out "That one has failed!" At this point, the aircraft was diving with a pitch angle of −61.5 degrees. The aircraft crashed into the ground at 09:08:34 near Balotești at a speed of 324 kn, just 89 seconds after takeoff and 27 seconds after Captain Bătănoiu became incapacitated. The aircraft was completely destroyed on impact, killing everyone on board instantly, and leaving a 6 m crater within the field.

The Bucharest control tower made repeated attempts to contact Flight 371, but to no avail. The tower asked another aircraft flying in the vicinity to contact Flight 371, while requesting that the TAROM dispatcher contact Flight 371 as well. After confirming that Flight 371 had lost all contact, Bucharest control tower issued a "distress phase" on the flight. After a phone call from Balotesti railway station, search and rescue teams identified the crash site.