By David Koenig - The Associated Press
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) on Thursday issued its final report on the incident of a United Airlines plane that descended to just 748 feet from the surface of the ocean shortly after taking off from Kahulu Airport in Hawaii last December.
Federal authorities concluded that the lack of communication between the pilot and co-pilot prevented control of the vertical trajectory, air velocity and nose direction of the aircraft.
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After a normal takeoff in heavy rain on the island of Maui, the commander asked the first officer to readjust the ailerons, but the co-pilot heard "15" instead of "5," according to the federal report. The plane then began to accelerate and pitch downwards.
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"At that moment I knew that the captain had difficulty controlling speed. I couldn't be sure what the captain was facing," the co-pilot told investigators.
The nose of the plane kept tilting downwards and the co-pilot saw through the glass that they were crossing the cloud layer. "I instantly recognized the gravity of our situation," he explained. "I told him, 'Go up, up, up, up' many times," he added. The plane's automatic ground proximity alert system also sounded its alarm.
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From an altitude of 2,200 feet, the Boeing 777 plunged more than 1,400 feet into the Pacific Ocean before the pilots — who were not named in the report — could regain altitude.
The commander decided to continue the trip to San Francisco after flight attendants told him "everyone was fine" and there was no apparent damage to the plane. On board were 271 passengers and 10 crew. The rest of the trip was routine.
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The 55-year-old captain had nearly 20,000 hours of flying experience, a considerable amount. The co-pilot had 5,300. Both continue to fly for United, according to the airline.
"There is nothing more important than the safety of our crew and our customers, so we are leveraging the lessons learned from this flight to bolster training for all pilots," United spokesman Joshua Freed said.
"Our pilots voluntarily reported this incident and United cooperated fully with the independent investigation" to improve safety for the entire industry, Freed added.
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Earlier this year, the Federal Aviation Administration said United pilots reported the incident under a voluntary safety notification program. Authorities investigated the incident "and appropriate action was taken."
The incident attracted little attention until an aeronautical publication, The Air Current, reported on its analysis of data collected from the plane.
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The NTSB learned of what happened on the flight two months later, by which time the information from the so-called black boxes had already been re-recorded.
The incident occurred on the same day that 36 people were injured, 11 of them seriously, when a Hawaiian Airlines flight from Phoenix (Arizona) suffered severe turbulence while approaching Honolulu. The National Weather Service had issued a thunderstorm and unstable air warning.