Surviving United Airlines Flight 1722

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. The Flight and Its Pilots
3. Weather Conditions and Wind Shear
4. Takeoff and Flap Configuration
5. Confusion in the Cockpit
6. The Plane's Descent and Near-Crash
7. Lessons Learned and Broader Implications
8. Conclusion

The Story of United Airlines Flight 1722

On December 18, 2022, United Airlines Flight 1722 was scheduled to depart from Maui's Kahului airport in Hawaii, bound for San Francisco. The flight was carrying 271 passengers and 10 crew members. However, what should have been a routine departure quickly turned into a terrifying ordeal for everyone on board.

The Flight and Its Pilots

The captain of Flight 1722 had been with United Airlines for years and had accumulated almost 20,000 flying hours, 5,000 of which were in the Boeing triple seven. The first officer, by comparison, was new to United Airlines and had just 120 hours on the aircraft and just over 5,000 hours on all planes in total. Before joining United, he had been with Hawaiian Airways and was familiar enough with the weather around the Hawaiian Islands to know that this day was particularly rough.

Weather Conditions and Wind Shear

The severe weather conditions that day had been thoroughly briefed to the captain by the dispatcher before even arriving at the airport. As the first officer was carrying out his external inspection of the aircraft, he received a text message from a friend telling him that another aircraft on its way into Honolulu that morning had declared an emergency after experiencing turbulence so severe that the pilots had temporarily lost control of their aircraft. In other words, from the very Outset of this flight, the pilots knew that things were a little out of the ordinary.

The real danger on this day was not the rain but the wind, or more specifically, wind shear. Windshear is a dangerous weather phenomenon whereby the wind rapidly changes its speed or direction over a short distance. It can be deadly to aircraft because the whole reason planes fly in the first place is by going fast enough through the air that the air can support them. If the wind suddenly starts coming from behind the aircraft, its speed can get so slow that it simply falls out of the sky like a dead weight. If this happens low to the ground, like just after takeoff, there may not be enough room for the pilots to save their aircraft.

Takeoff and Flap Configuration

As the pilots made their way to the Runway, the controller relayed that he had received multiple reports from pilots of low-level wind shear. The pilots were on high alert and prepared for a possible encounter with this phenomenon. The captain briefed the first officer on the wind shear escape maneuver, which involved pushing the engines to maximum thrust and pulling the plane's nose to 15 degrees above the horizon. They fully expected that they may have to carry out this maneuver after takeoff.

Preparing for windshear involves more than just carrying out briefings. As well as this, the captain decided to extend the flaps to 20 degrees for takeoff. Generally, triple seven pilots use flap 15 for takeoff, but on this day, the extra notch of flaps would give the plane an additional margin of safety, allowing it to fly more slowly if the wind suddenly changed. On top of this, he opted to use maximum power for takeoff rather than the reduced power setting normally used to save wear and tear on the engines. He would need every ounce of power he could get for this takeoff.

Confusion in the Cockpit

As the plane accelerated, the first officer raised the flaps by one notch to 15 degrees and then contacted departure control on the radio. This miscommunication about the flap setting was fundamentally a pretty minor one. After all, it would only be a few moments before the captain would tell the first officer to move the flaps up to the next notch. But what made this error so insidiously consequential is that the captain now had a completely false picture in his head about the plane's configuration. His expectations were now diverging from reality, and the confusion this would Create would now endanger the lives of all 281 people on board.

When the first officer raised the flaps to 15 degrees, the red overspeed markings on the captain's primary flight display only went up by a few knots. The captain was expecting this red overspeed section to go up significantly because with flaps 5, which he thought he had called for, it takes a lot more speed to cause damage to the flaps. So now the captain was in a situation where his plane was accelerating and was about to go too fast for the flaps. He didn't understand why this was happening. Was there a problem with the flaps? Were the violent wind conditions outside playing a role? To prevent the plane from going too fast, he pulled back on the thrust lever slightly, but this only helped so much. The plane continued to accelerate.

The Plane's Descent and Near-Crash

As all of this was happening, the first officer was dialing in the air traffic controller's clearance for the flight to climb to an altitude of 16,000 feet. Just as the first officer was focusing on the weather and the instructions from the controller, the captain's confusion was growing. The plane had started to exceed the safe speed limit for the flaps. The captain quickly checked the flap indicator on his central display and saw that they were set not at 5 degrees as he had recalled asking for, but at 15 degrees. He immediately told the first officer to retract the flaps to 5 degrees, which he then did. But this didn't solve the problem. In fact, the plane kept accelerating.

Deep inside the clouds with no way to see outside their plane, there was only one way for the pilots to see the terrifying truth. Their primary flight display showed that their aircraft was beginning to pitch down. In fact, its nose had just begun to dip below the horizon. Their triple seven had started to enter a rapid descent. The captain eased forwards on the control column, reduced power on the engines, and re-established the plane on its normal climb profile. The two pilots were shaken. They were the only ones on board who had a full Sense of what had just happened.

Lessons Learned and Broader Implications

The near-crash of Flight 1722 is a lesson in how quickly things can go wrong in an aircraft, even with all of the modern safeguards against accidents. A simple loss of situational awareness by the captain, combined with poor weather, somewhat unusual aircraft configuration, and the miscommunication around flap setting, nearly caused a disaster. If this flight had taken place at night time or if the cloud base had been lower, or if the captain had reacted even just seconds later than he did, this could very well have become the single worst air disaster in U.S history by passenger fatalities.

Conclusion

The incident involving United Airlines Flight 1722 highlights the importance of clear communication, situational awareness, and proper training for pilots. It also raises broader questions about the state of pilot training and airline practice. While the incident did not result in any injuries or damage to the aircraft, it serves as a stark reminder of the potential dangers of flying and the need for constant vigilance and Attention to Detail.