An investigation into the January incident is ongoing.
A United 787-8 Dreamliner (Photo: Noah Escobar)
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) released its preliminary report on Tuesday regarding the United flight 613 incident that occurred on Jan. 24. The Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner, operating from Lagos, Nigeria, to Washington Dulles, experienced altitude fluctuations during its cruise phase in Côte d’Ivoire airspace.
According to the report, the incident began when the aircraft, flying at 36,000 feet, suddenly experienced autopilot disconnection. This led to a series of altitude deviations lasting about 12 minutes, with the 787 reaching a maximum altitude of 36,203 feet and dropping as low as 35,577 feet.
The report indicates that just prior to the “altitude excursions,” the aircraft’s systems had registered failures in both the left and right inertial reference units (IRUs). These failures occurred approximately one hour and five minutes and 55 minutes before the event, respectively.
During the incident, the flight crew took manual control of the aircraft. The report notes several events, including the activation of the stick shaker, multiple autopilot disconnections, and the disengagement of the autothrottle system.
The incident resulted in injuries to passengers and crew members. One crew member sustained serious injuries, while 15 others on board the flight suffered minor injuries. Many of these injuries occurred during the meal service, which was underway at the time of the altitude fluctuations, investigators stated.
Following the incident, the flight crew made the decision to return to Lagos, where the aircraft landed safely. Emergency responders met the plane upon arrival and transported the injured to a nearby medical facility.
The 12-year-old jet – registered as N27903 – remained out of service in Lagos for just over a week following the incident. It returned to revenue service on Jan. 31.
Data from Flightradar24 shows that just three days before this incident, the same aircraft diverted to Accra, Ghana, while also flying from Lagos to Washington. The reason for this diversion remains unclear.
A spokesperson from the airline blamed the Jan. 24 diversion on a “technical issue and an unexpected aircraft movement” soon after the incident.
As part of the investigation, the NTSB said that the flight data recorder had been successfully downloaded. However, the cockpit voice recorder, which has a two-hour recording capability, had overwritten the data from the incident by the time it was retrieved.
The NTSB’s investigation is ongoing, with specialists assigned to examine various aspects of the incident, including operations, human performance, airplane systems, survival factors, and flight data recorder analysis. The investigation team includes representatives from the Federal Aviation Administration, United, Boeing, Honeywell, and the Air Line Pilots Association.
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