San Francisco-bound United flight’s plunge towards the ocean was attributable to pilot error, NTSB says

By Pete Muntean | CNN

A 2022 incident the place a United Airways flight got here inside 748 toes of crashing into the Pacific Ocean was attributable to pilot error, federal investigators say.

In a just-published ultimate report, the Nationwide Transportation Security Board pins the reason for United Airways flight 1722’s dive on “the flight crew’s failure to handle the airplane’s vertical flightpath” after an obvious “miscommunication” between the 2 pilots over the place of the aircraft’s wing flaps.

The incident came about about one minute after the Boeing 777 departed Hawaii’s Kahului Airport in heavy rain and turbulence on December 18, the NTSB mentioned. The flight with 271 passengers on board continued on to its vacation spot San Francisco with out additional situation, investigators mentioned.

The NTSB mentioned statements from the flight crew revealed confusion over the setting of the 777’s flaps, that are usually prolonged for takeoff and retracted incrementally throughout climb out.

“When the airplane reached the acceleration altitude, the captain decreased the pitch angle barely and known as for the flap setting to be decreased to flaps 5,” the NTSB mentioned in its report. “In response to the primary officer, he thought that he heard the captain announce flaps 15.”

The report says the captain, who was flying the airplane at an altitude of two,100 toes (640 meters), grew to become involved about damaging the still-extended flaps and began descending and decelerating till cockpit alarms sounded.

‘Pull up pull up’

“Each pilots recalled listening to the preliminary warnings from the bottom proximity warning system (GPWS), and the primary officer recalled asserting ‘pull up pull up’ together with these preliminary GPWS warnings,” the NTSB report mentioned.

The report says that United Airways has modified its coaching procedures and “issued an consciousness marketing campaign about flight path administration at their coaching middle.”

After the incident first got here to gentle earlier this 12 months, United mentioned it had performed an investigation with the FAA and the pilots union “that in the end resulted within the pilots receiving extra coaching.”

United is “drawing on the teachings realized from this flight to tell the coaching of all United pilots,” the airline mentioned in an announcement on Thursday.

“Our pilots voluntarily reported this occasion and United absolutely cooperated with the unbiased investigation in order that insights could possibly be used to reinforce the security of the whole business.”

United mentioned each pilots obtained extra coaching and proceed to fly for the airline.

‘Screams on the aircraft’