About one minute after takeoff from Kahului (Hawaii, U.S.) Airport, a Boeing 777 descended in instrument meteorological conditions from 2,100 to 748 ft over the Pacific Ocean, prompting warnings from the first officer and the ground-proximity warning system. The crew recovered from the descent, which caused no injuries and no damage to the airplane.
The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said in its final report on the Dec. 18, 2022, incident that the probable cause was the flight crew’s “failure to manage the airplane’s vertical flight path, airspeed and pitch attitude following a miscommunication about the captain’s desired flap setting during the initial climb.”
The NTSB noted in its six-page final report that the event did not meet the conditions that would have required it to be reported to the board, and by the time the board learned of the event, two months after it occurred, relevant information from the cockpit voice recorder and the …
