se of the different people that could have prevented it from happening. The NTSB determined that “the probable cause of this accident was the failure of the flightcrew.” This is true; the flight crew did fail, however, others share the responsibility for this accident. Equally responsible where maintenance personnel, an Air Traffic Controllers, the system, and a twenty cent light bulb. What continues is a discussion on, what happened, why it happened, what to do about it and what was done about it.Maintenance personnel should have replaced a faulty indicator light bulb for the nose gear. The filament in the bulb was detached from one of the two mountings. That enabled the bulb to illuminate intermittently. When the maintenance personnel serviced the aircraft, they found the light was not working. As the mechanic was replacing the light bulb, it started working. The mechanic assumed that the light was loose in the receptacle, believing the situation corrected itself when he pressed the lamp. Because of this, the faulty bulb was not replaced. An entry in the maintenance records indicated that the light was fixed. One could say that the mechanic should have been more thorough. However, the light was functioning when the maintenance personnel released the aircraft. (Note. This device is (simply) pushed into, or pulled out of the instrument panel or receptacle to change the bulb. This design facilitates ease of bulb replacement.)There were significant animosities between labor and management at the time of this accident. Perhaps the maintenance personnel would have been more thorough if labor relations would have been more amiable. There are many factors that could have interfered with the maintenance personnel performing the repairs properly ranging from form personal problems to job satisfaction. If the employee was subjected any undo pressures or distractions the employees performance may have been affected. This ...
