The investigation commission produced the following conclusion : Two similar accidents occurred in the following decade . Eastern Air Lines Flight 401 was a watershed incident in airline safety : on December 29 , 1972 , its entire flight crew became preoccupied with a burnt-out landing-gear indicator light and failed to notice that the autopilot had inadvertently been disconnected . As a result , the aircraft gradually lost altitude and eventually crashed . A similar incident occurred on December 28 , 1978 , when the captain of United Airlines Flight 173 was distracted by a landing-gear issue and did not heed his crewmembers ' concerns about the aircraft 's fuel level , resulting in an exhaustion of fuel to all engines and a subsequent crash
United Airlines Flight 173
United Airlines Flight 173
Scandinavian Airlines System Flight 933