The nosedive and recovery on United Airlines flight 1722 lasted less than a minute.
Ted S. Warren/Associated PressLATEST Feb. 14, 3:30 p.m. The National Transportation Safety Board announced Tuesday that it is opening an investigation into reports that a United Airlines flight from Maui to San Francisco International plunged to 775 feet above the Pacific Ocean in mid-December.
“A preliminary report is expected in 2-3 weeks,” the NTSB wrote.
Feb. 13, 3:11 p.m. A United Airlines flight from Maui, Hawaii, to San Francisco flew too close to the sea when it took a nosedive toward the Pacific Ocean last December, according to a new report.
On Dec. 18, 2022, at 2:49 p.m. Hawaii Standard Time, United Airlines flight UA 1722 plunged to 775 feet above the Pacific Ocean, shortly after the plane took off from Maui, according to data from Flight Radar, a flight tracking website.
The incident was first reported by The Air Current, which wrote that the United Boeing 777-200 plane dipped at a vertical rate of 8,600 feet per minute. The aircraft returned to an altitude of 2,350 feet less than a minute after the dive and eventually reached 33,000 feet. It landed at SFO at 9:03 p.m., 27 minutes before the expected arrival time.
The Air Current also reported that the audio recordings reviewed by the publication did not reference any exchange about the dive, nor is it clear whether air traffic controllers were even privy to the plane’s plummet.
When the flight, bound for San Francisco International Airport, took off from Hawaii, it experienced poor weather conditions, including showers and thunderstorms, according to the National Weather Service office in Honolulu.
After landing at SFO, two pilots filed the “appropriate safety report,” a spokesperson for United told SFGATE. Pilots were required to receive additional training, and the airline also said the two pilots had approximately 25,000 hours of collective flying experience.
United told The Air Current that it did not report the dive to the National Transportation Safety Board because the plane was not damaged and no passengers, crew or other persons were injured.
The occurrence happened the same day that 25 people were injured on a Hawaiian Airlines flight from Phoenix to Maui because of severe turbulence from storms in the United States around Christmas.