A federal investigation into a United Airlines plane that nearly nose-dived into the ocean shortly after takeoff from Maui in December, en route to San Francisco, found that the incident was the result of a miscommunication between pilots.
The plane lost altitude one minute after takeoff from Kahului Airport, dropping from 2,100 feet to about 748 feet above the water before recovering, all in less than a minute, according to the National Transportation Safety Board report.
Because of turbulent weather during takeoff, including heavy rain, the captain opted for certain flap and thrust settings and “hand-flew” the Boeing 777. When the flight reached a certain altitude, the captain called for an adjustment to those settings, asking the co-pilot to reduce the flap setting from flaps 20 to flaps 5.
But the co-pilot thought the captain called for flaps 15, not flaps 5, he told investigators. Once the co-pilot used the flaps 15 setting, the plane’s speed began to accelerate rapidly while its altitude decreased. The two pilots quickly shifted into recovery mode as a warning system alerted them that they were getting too close to the ground.
Once the pilots got the plane back on track, they turned on autopilot, and the rest of the flight was uneventful, the report said.
“It was a bigger drop than I have ever experienced on an airplane,” UC Berkeley professor Kenneth Raymond, who was on the flight, told The Chronicle.
In response to the event, United Airlines modified its training to “address this occurrence” and “issued an awareness campaign about flight path management at their training center,” the report said. United also previously told the Chronicle that the two pilots involved in the incident, who had 25,000 hours of experience combined, underwent additional training.
The captain also had 5,000 hours of experience flying a Boeing 777, while the co-pilot had 120 hours on that type of aircraft, according to the report.
Reach Danielle Echeverria: [email protected]; Twitter: @DanielleEchev
