A United plane lost altitude abruptly and came within 775 feet of falling into the ocean
A United Airlines Boeing 777 suffered an abrupt loss of altitude shortly after takeoff from Kahului Airport on the Hawaiian island of Maui, bound for San Francisco, California.
When just over a minute had passed since takeoff, flight UAL1722 entered a “steep dive” that took it from 2,000 feet (609 m) to 775 feet (236 m), according to data from flight tracking site Flight Radar 24.
“The aircraft recovered, resumed climb and continued its flight to San Francisco where it landed safely,” Flight Radar 24 adds.
The incident, which was first reported Sunday by The Air Current, occurred last Dec. 18.
According to The Air Current, heavy rains were recorded that day around the Hawaiian airport and at least a dozen people were injured due to turbulence on a flight that had arrived in Honolulu from Phoenix, Arizona.
The source indicates that it was the same weather system that caused a severe winter storm that days later hit the country on Christmas, and caused the virtual collapse of Southwest’s operations.
On the other hand, there is no evidence that air traffic controllers had perceived the incident as there appear to be no exchanges on the matter.
United Airlines notified the FAA of the incident
The media outlet cites two sources as saying that the event caused the occupants of the flight to be exposed to forces 2.7 times that of gravity.
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The source adds that the incident, which lasted about 45 seconds, was duly reported to the airline and also to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
A company source explained that after the plane’s arrival in San Francisco, the pilots filed an internal safety report and the plane was inspected. The incident led to the airmen receiving additional training.
The company said that between them they had some 25,000 flight hours, but did not disclose which was at the controls at the time of the incident or how much experience they had.
With information from Univision
Photo: Altair78/Wikimedia
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