Did human error trigger Dow nightmare?

Was the Dow’s historic roller-coaster nightmare — down as much as 998.50 at one point — triggered by an innocent human error?

CNBC’s Cindy Perman and JeeYeon Park report that the dramatic selloff in an already jittery market could have been, at least, partially mitigated:

“One trader, on the condition of anonymity, said he heard fixed-income desks in Europe shut down early because there was no liquidity — basically European banks are halting lending right now,” CNBC.com reported.

“But in the final 15 minutes of trading it was revealed that a trader at a major firm may have mistyped a trade as billions — instead of millions — which made what would’ve been a 300-point selloff more like a 900-point selloff.”