Boeing 777 Came Within 775 Feet Of Hitting The Pacific Ocean

[dmwalker 604]

https://simpleflying.com/united-airlines-boeing-777-descends-775-ft/

United Airlines issued a statement sainig “After landing at SFO, the pilots filed the appropriate safety report. United then closely coordinated with the FAA and ALPA on an investigation that ultimately resulted in the pilots receiving additional training. Safety remains our highest priority.”

Should we take this as meaning their safety training was not sufficiently thorough in the first place?

[threexgreen 3,139]

53 minutes ago, dmwalker said:

Should we take this as meaning their safety training was not sufficiently thorough in the first place?

No. No matter how good the training is, it's never going to rule out mistakes completely. If something like this happens, you get extra training on the specific situation.

[dmwalker 604]

According to FlightRadar24, it dropped from 2200 ft to 775 ft in 12 seconds with a vertical speed of up to -8192 fpm.

Funnily enough, FlightAware doesn't show any of this. It looks like a normal climb up to 30,000 + ft.

[mwilk 1,106]

Blancolirio just dropped a video about this on YouTube.

[dmwalker 604]

He speculates that, based on his review of a similar problem with Emirates 231,  someone may have inadvertently set 00000 in the altitude select window, which kicked in when the autopilot was engaged. Would that always be an inadvertent action or is there some situation where 00000 would have been selected by the previous flight crew?

If altitude select window showed only a single 0, it would be more noticeable. The B787 does that, based on the Quality Wings version.

Edited February 14, 2023 by dmwalker

[G550flyer 1,013]

5 hours ago, dmwalker said:

https://simpleflying.com/united-airlines-boeing-777-descends-775-ft/

United Airlines issued a statement sainig “After landing at SFO, the pilots filed the appropriate safety report. United then closely coordinated with the FAA and ALPA on an investigation that ultimately resulted in the pilots receiving additional training. Safety remains our highest priority.”

Should we take this as meaning their safety training was not sufficiently thorough in the first place?

nope. When things happen, we um, retrain in an effort to prevent it from happening again.

[dmwalker 604]

20 hours ago, dmwalker said:

someone may have inadvertently set 00000 in the altitude select window, which kicked in when the autopilot was engaged.

Based on the PMDG 777, all that happens is a gentle 1200 fpm descent and with the FMC warning message.

Lots of conflicting theories being posted but one never knows who are the genuine commercial aviation pilots and who are folks like me who don't really know very much on the subject.

If this incident goes through an Aviation Safety Reporting System with no direct involvement of the FAA or NTSB, does that mean any conclusions or recommendations will not be made public?

[paulyg123 135]

Well you know it was not a mechanical error as plane continued the long flight afterword.  I suspect it was an autopilot error by the pilot either not setting it correctly or setting if and not realizing it was indeed set to climb.  With bad weather they didn’t immediately notice that were descending.  They probable got a pull up warning

[dmwalker 604]

I think it sort of looks like a microburst, based on what some folks are saying.

[psolk 3,040]

I had read that they went from flaps extended to flaps up without stopping incrementally and they dropped due to being out of correct flap/speed configuration but again, speculating...  If so they would have bypassed the gate at Flaps 1 so I'm not sure this would be the case but apparently the recovery maneuver was almost 3G's so pretty sure everyone would have known "something" was up... 

[jon b 2,047]

20 minutes ago, psolk said:

apparently the recovery maneuver was almost 3G

Lucky not to have G stalled it then.

That doesn’t really sound like a microburst to me then, they are more of a constant G encounter where the escape manoeuvre is flown. Typically 15 degrees pitch with full power and the aircraft is climbing but within a descending airmass so the net result is decent, but you don’t suddenly pop out of it and pull 3G as you climb away.

[threexgreen 3,139]

On 2/14/2023 at 2:43 AM, mwilk said:

Blancolirio just dropped a video about this on YouTube.

Doesn't he fly the 777 for United?

14 hours ago, dmwalker said:

If this incident goes through an Aviation Safety Reporting System with no direct involvement of the FAA or NTSB, does that mean any conclusions or recommendations will not be made public?

United informed the FAA after the pilots filed a report with the airline.

I checked the online ASRS website but there is no report on this.

[mwilk 1,106]

35 minutes ago, Nixoq said:

Doesn't he fly the 777 for United?

 

He's a 777 F/O for American.

[dmwalker 604]

3 hours ago, psolk said:

I had read that they went from flaps extended to flaps up without stopping incrementally

According to the FR24 printout, just before they reached the 2200 ft, they had a ground speed of 196 kts and a vertical speed of  2368 fpm. I assume that the IAS would have been at least the same since they were still aligned with the runway so would they not already have been at flaps 5?

[dmwalker 604]

Just to tie up a loose end:

https://www.cnn.com/travel/united-flight-plunge-ntsb-report/index.html