On 18 December 2022, a United Airlines Boeing 777-200 registered N212UA came within 800 feet of the Pacific Ocean after plummeting 1,400 feet in just 18 seconds shortly after takeoff from the sky off from Maui, Hawaii, on its way to San Francisco.
The previously unreported incident further fuels concerns about major safety and operational issues occurring in US aviation involving Boeing aircraft recently.
United Airlines Flight UA1722 took off from Kahului Airport, Maui (OGG) in stormy weather and climbed to an altitude of 2,200 feet before rapidly beginning to descend.
The flight plummeted to 775 feet, bringing it frighteningly close to the ocean before quickly recovering and resuming its climb to 33,000 feet, The Air Current reported.
The incident lasted 45 seconds and the passengers had to withstand a 2.7G force of a plane descending at a speed of 8,600 feet per minute.
It’s unclear whether air traffic controllers noticed the terrifying incident in Maui, and released records between pilots and air traffic controllers do not mention the event.
A United spokesperson confirmed the incident took place and said an official internal safety report was filed by the pilots and the plane was inspected after the trip. Between them, the pilots had logged 25,000 flight hours.
United did not report the incident to the National Transportation Safety Board.
I am not convinced at all that this is the true story. There is no radar data nor reports to confirm this info. United did not confirm that this incident took place the way it is described here, just that an incident took place concerning this flight.
How did a plane at 2200 feet descend at the rate of 8600 feet per minute for 45 seconds and lose only 1400 feet of altitude? Something is not right about this story. The rate of descent would have been an average of 1867 feet per minute, which would not produce unusual GG-force. If there in fact was a descent so rapid as to produce 2.7G, where are the passenger accounts of the horror?
The 1400′ were covered in 18 seconds. That’s less than a third of a minute. Still, my math shows me that in a full minute, that would work out to 4666 feet– loosely around half the speed they claim. It’s strange that i’m better at this figuring than they are.
Still! You can find the passenger accounts online now.
[…] December 2022, United Airlines flight UA1722 experienced a sudden loss of altitude shortly after departing from Kahului, Hawaii, in a Boeing 777-200 aircraft registered N212UA. The plane descended from 2,100 feet to 748 […]