DUBAI (Reuters) - An Emirates flight to Washington in December flew too low as it took off from Dubai International Airport and over an adjacent inner-city neighbourhood, investigators said on Thursday.

       There were no injuries to the 372 passengers and crew onboard or damage to the plane in the Dec. 19 incident, which investigators determined as serious in a preliminary report.

       The flight landed in Washington uneventfully, it said.

       The United Arab Emirates General Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) investigators said the pilot of the Boeing 777 set the altitude to the standard 4,000 feet for departure from Dubai airport.

       The aircraft, however, failed to ascend to that altitude due to what investigators described as shallow climb during takeoff.

       Investigators said the pilot had stated that she had followed the onboard computer during takeoff. No cause for the shallow climb was given in the preliminary report.

       Investigators said examinations and analysis of the root cause and crew performance would be included in the final report but did not say when that would be released.

       State-owned Emirates declined to comment on the report.

       Investigators said that data from the onboard flight data recorder had been downloaded but the cockpit voice recorder for the flight had been overwritten.

       (Writing by Alexander Cornwell)