BA passengers told in error of imminent crash

Article in The Independent by James Corcut 28 August 2010

Passengers on a British Airways flight were told they were about to crash into the sea after the message "This is an emergency. We may shortly need to make an emergency landing on water" was played in error.

BA said it was investigating the incident but denied reports that the message was triggered in error by one of the pilots. A spokesman added: "We would like to apologise to passengers."

If it was not pilot error, I wonder what caused it. If it was computer error, that seems more worrying.