Performance Tuning :: Oracle 11g Alternates Between Two Execution Plans?

We have a query which makes Oracle behave very strangely. It is a straight-forward join between four tables of about 30.000 rows each, with some simple comparisons and some NOT LIKE:s.

When we run this query, it either takes about 1 second or more than 1.000 seconds to run and return the approximately 5.000 rows of the result. If we run the same query over and over again, it fluctuates back and forth between two different execution plans, apparently at random, 3 times out of 4 selecting the 1.000 second version and 1 time out of 4 the 1 second version.

There are no other connections to the database, the schema is not modified, the data is identical, the query is identical, and the response is identical, but the execution time alternates between 1 second and 1.000 seconds.On the same database instance we have another schema which is identical, but with slightly less data, which is used for development. The 1.000 second run times did not happen in that schema, but only in the test system's database.

Therefore we would REALLY like to understand what happens and why, so that we can avoid triggering this in the future. We could try locking the 1 second execution plan, but then we're afraid of doing the same thing wrong again in the future.

Here are the two execution plans that Oracle switches between, more or less at random:

Rows (1st) Rows (avg) Rows (max) Row Source Operation
---------- ---------- ---------- ---------------------------------------------------
5455 5455 5455 HASH JOIN (cr=15663 pr=10536 pw=0 time=855673 us cost=82273 size=2707430769293 card=14028138701)
79272 79272 79272 TABLE ACCESS FULL GROUPS (cr=1008 pr=0 pw=0 time=22154 us cost=277 size=10693 card=289)

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Rows (1st) Rows (avg) Rows (max) Row Source Operation
---------- ---------- ---------- ---------------------------------------------------
5455 5455 5455 HASH JOIN (cr=15664 pr=0 pw=0 time=778178696 us cost=30838477 size=741611997206725 card=3842549208325)
375411 375411 375411 TABLE ACCESS FULL GROUP_GROUPS_FLAT (cr=3782 pr=0 pw=0 time=51533 us cost=1029 size=25152738 card=375414)

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The query:

select g.ucid, a.ucid
from account a, groups g, group_members gm, group_groups_flat ggf
where a.ucid = gm.ucid_member
and gm.ucid_group = ggf.ucid_member

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And excerpts from the schema:
CREATE TABLE "PDB"."GROUPS"
(
"UCID" VARCHAR2(256 BYTE),
"UNIX_GID" NUMBER(*,0),
[...]

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