On 31 March 1995, the Airbus A310-324, registered as YR-LCC, entered a nose-down dive after takeoff and crashed near Balotești in Romania, killing all 60 people on board.

[1] Investigation of the crash revealed that a faulty auto-throttle reduced the left engine to idle during climb.

While this was happening, the captain became incapacitated (possibly by a heart attack),[2][3] leaving the first officer to react instinctively, over the final 60 seconds of the flight, based on his training and experience – but as he had spent most of his flying career flying Soviet-built planes with a different style Attitude Direction Indicator than on the A310, he was unable to respond properly to the situation.

[6] The aircraft involved in the crash was an Airbus A310-324 registered as YR-LCC and named Muntenia after one of Romania's historical regions.

It was delivered to Pan American World Airways in August the same year registered as N814PA and named Clipper Liberty Bell.

It was powered by two Pratt & Whitney PW4152 turbofan engines and had logged in 31,092 flight hours and 6,216 takeoff and landing cycles.

Thirty-two of the passengers were from Belgium, nine from Romania, three from the United States, two from Spain, and one each from France, Thailand, and the Netherlands.

[2] TAROM Flight 371 took 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.

After Bătănoiu told First Officer Stoi he felt sick, he groaned then fell silent, apparently having lost consciousness.

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 couldn't apply sufficient corrective action to recover the aircraft from its left spiral dive.

From the aircraft history record obtained from the FAA, a similar malfunction had been reported during its operation with Delta Air Lines.

Investigators stated that the most probable cause of this malfunction was due to the excessive friction in the kinematic linkages between the throttle and the ATS coupling units.

[2][9] In March 1995, a criminal investigation was started by the Prosecutor's Office attached to the Bucharest Tribunal with the objective of establishing the circumstances of the air crash.