Might be different philosophy since I am low experience and flying on airbus but first reaction would be to use full automation available, be sure to be in proper lateral/vertical mode and select the speed. This taking about 5 seconds.

Maybe they reduced the thrust because a pitch up would cause a really high roc potentially leading to an altitude bust. But even then you can still go, disregard the cleared altitude and do it as you would during an unreliable airspeed climb to MSA if needed.

Just an observation and not meant to sound "sagey"...I flew early "glass" Boeings and A320...When things got a little hairy I always went manual to put things back in order then reintroduced auto as needed...Worked every time... In spite of the inevitable mistakes and thankfully having flown with a bunch of pros I was very blessed to have been violation/incident/accident free...Many FSAPs, however, were generated just in case...:)...

I fully agree if you intend to ‘fly the plane’ but if it’s keeping everything manual and at the same time go nose down in a critical phase of flight I would not feel confortable and that’s against everything I have been taught during my PPL/CPL and then type rating (and since I have low experience I can only rely on that).

Mmm...Yep fly the plane is the goal...:) You should do it however you're taught and comfortable with...Anyway I don't have a dog in the hunt anymore so I'm now going outside and play....Blue skies and stay safe...

Noted one inconsistency between the NTSB final report and the NTSB form 6120.1: Former lists the captain’s time in type as 500; latter lists captain’s time in type as 5,000 (also lists PIC time in type as 300).

Inconsistencies are sometimes found in their documentation, nothing new I'm afraid.

Have they taught you not to pitch down while in manual flight?

yes only up, until I reach the sun.

More seriously I meant not to switch focus to something else than looking outside/instrument scanning and so avoid situations like this where the plane go in such a nose down attitude / vertical rate / loss of SAW.

I mentioned that discrepancy because there were some initial rumors that both pilots were relatively low time-in-type. Assuming the 6120.1 data is accurate, the captain had considerable 777 experience but was a relatively new 777 captain, while the FO was relatively low time-in-type.

UA1722 777
 

Yeah, that was exactly my question-- How siutationally unaware was the PF to reduce thrust without understanding the big picture. On climb-out? It's a confusing choice of control inputs.

Does the B777 pitch down with a reduction of thrust when flying manually or does its FBW compensate? Could that have exacerbated the descent?

Disregard, I see from the FCOM that it compensates.

I see similarities between this incident and the Emirates 777 botched takeoff in Dubai. Perfect aircraft, alert and trained crew just sitting there watching a complete mess unfold and doing nothing at all until a well developed unsafe condition exists.

Tip of the iceberg I reckon.

Worth noting that there's no mention of a stall in the NTSB report.

This all happened because of confusion about the flaps setting. Did the PNF confirm what he heard verbally. 99.9% of the time it's the same action, just one step, done. In this case it was supposed to be two steps.

No, because he selected Flap 15 instead of 5 which is a "safe" setting in terms of inadvertent stall. It all happened because the Captain stopped flying the plane when he got distracted by the fact the flaps didn't go to where he expected them to.

He was distracted because there was an overspeed warning and he didn't know why. He had to check everything including flaps.

NTSB docket
 

I disagree with the second quoted statement. Just continue flying the aircraft and don't let the speed exceed the maximum allowable. That would mean continuing to look at the PFD and pitching the nose up enough to keep the speed from getting too high. If one needs to 'check everything', they can simply engage the autopilot, ensure the automatics are operating as desired and then start looking around. In addition, the speed tape on the PFD which the pilot should be looking at will be giving information about what flap setting has been selected.

As for the F/O, he should be looking at the flap lever when the flaps are being selected. Then it is highly unlikely that the wrong selection will be made. PF says 'Flaps 5", PM says 'Flaps 5" then looks at the flaps lever while reaching for it and ensures that it goes to the proper detent. Then look at the flap indicator and see that it changes to an amber 5, confirming proper selection. Then look back at the PFD. All takes about three seconds.

What did the training teach them that they missed?