I know this is not y2k-related, but it does show that computer programming can play a role in airplane problems. It also shows how long it takes for a case like this to get to court.

yahoo

Tuesday June 13 7:20 PM ET

Jury Finds Tech. Firms Partly Responsible in AA Crash

MIAMI (Reuters) - A Miami federal jury found a computer company and a software firm partly to blame on Tuesday for an American Airlines crash in Colombia in 1995 that killed 159 people.

The case was brought by American Airlines, which was found liable in the crash and has already settled most claims arising from it but had maintained that computer maker Honeywell Inc. and software firm Jeppesen-Sanders Inc were also partly responsible for the accident because they supplied a faulty database for a flight computer.

The Miami federal jury found Honeywell was eight percent responsible for the crash and Jeppesen was 17 percent responsible, with American Airlines 75 percent responsible.

American Airlines Flight 965 from Miami crashed into a mountainside near Cali on Dec. 20, 1995, after the pilots lost their way.

The airline was found liable in the crash two years later and has settled the majority of claims for some $300 million, but American has long contended that apart from pilot error, a defective database on the plane, a Boeing 757, was to blame.

An American Airlines spokesman, John Hotard, said that a further step might now be a further trial to determine damages against Honeywell and Jeppesen.

The airline, a unit of AMR. Corp (NYSE:AMR - news), said in a statement it concurred with Tuesday's verdict.

``While we have always acknowledged that the cockpit crew of Flight 965 made some mistakes, we were also certain that a defective database supplied by Honeywell and Jeppesen, and incorporated into the Honeywell flight management computer led this flight from the safety of the valley into the mountains where this tragic accident occurred,'' the airline said.

``Unfortunately we had to take Honeywell and Jeppesen to court so that they would take responsibility for intentionally leaving the defect in their database uncorrected and unannounced for years.''

Spokesman Hotard noted that the company was not claiming victory in the case, but rather ``concurring'' with the verdict, given the tragic nature of the crash.

The Miami jury found that there was negligence on the part of Honeywell and Jeppesen that was a cause of the crash and that the two firms had made and sold a defective database to American Airlines, making Honeywell and Jeppesen at least partially responsible for the crash.

In 1997, a U.S. judge found that American was guilty of ''willful misconduct'' in the crash because the airline's pilots kept descending into Colombia's treacherous mountains even after they knew they were lost.

-- Rachel Gibson (rgibson@hotmail.com), June 14, 2000