http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/109549...-to-balance-jetIan Smith

I hate to say it, but the door should have been fixed when they were on the ground. Why cause all these passenger panic?

The passengers had every right to not board the plane, but my God. If the Airline (a reputable one in this case!) tells me the door is jammed but safe, I'm getting on the plane to go home! :( It's also amazing how ignorant the average person is to weight issues. Just a few weeks ago I offered to take someone flying. This particular person assumed that they could invite others (each weighing an average of 150 pounds). It took some time to explain to them that four seats doesn't necessarily mean 4 people-- Especially in a 172 with extended wing tanks. :(

I must admit that I would not be thrilled at the prospect of flying on an airliner which had a faulty cargo door, more than one airliner has been destroyed by a cargo door blowing open in flight. I assume that the fault was such that it was not likely to blow open in flight, but if there was something wrong with it, then it should really have repositioned to a repair facility to have been fixed, instead of trying to combine such a flight with a revenue trip when they knew it would affect load carrying capabilities. The airline may have tight margins for revenue flights, but that's what they should have adequate insurance and back up provisions for.Of course we all know that as long as the thing was in acceptable CoG trim range, then the positioning of passengers is no different to what normally occurs on a flight, but they must have known that telling passengers who are not clued up about that sort of thing, that it would be bound to cause alarm. One cannot expect Joe Blow to accept and understand stuff of that nature without getting alarmed, he wants to think it is no more difficult than getting on a bus.It doesn't surprise me too much with the airline in question that the decision was poor. I have actually done some artwork for that same airline and what they initially wanted me to do was incredibly stupid, and on a shoestring budget too. I had to use FSX and Photoshop to fake some aerial shots of their aircraft because they were too cheap to shoot some real ones of their A320 in their new livery (and yes, I did download the livery from AVSIM and stick it on the default FSX Airbus). I won't go into the exact details here, but if I had done the illustration they had initially wanted, any passenger who saw it would have been mortified.Al

Hello,This plane was certainly safe .. technical point of view and regarding commercial aviation laws.Anyways ... the passengers are not preoccupied by those laws but their first preoccupation is to travel safely and not lost their life or lost relatives.And the comments of the disembarking passengers was not really to improve their feeling about how safe was this plane.On the other hand ... this is also a bad management by the airline of such problem.It's not 5 minutes before embarking to made announcement of a deffect on a cargo door and change the seats arrangements of the passengers for cope with a technical problem.This problem was know well before the plane eventually landed.It's not to the passengers to fix the problem it's the airline duty.Repartition of weight in a plane is state of art of flying .... but this must be planned .. not improvised.I suppose .. this time .. the cattle had smell the odor of the slaughter house and refused to go further ..... that's their full right.I hope it's a lesson learned for this airline and a signal for the others and also for the passengers .Regards.Gus.

this sounds pretty precedural to me, mabey im seeing it as something lite because life or death has little value to me but in my oppinion there was no risk, simply in this day and age people are scared when things dont go as planned. I also think if the crew had handled it better there would have been less people that refused to come on. that said considering the way they handled the situation, a 17 year old alone should never have to sleep in an airport and have to pay for another flight if she feels the plane is not safe

I have been a regular customer for all manner of airlines over that last 40+ years. While it has been a common occurrence to be asked to move to another seat for weight & balance purposes on small aircraft the likes of a EMB 120 etc... I have never been asked or heard of other passengers being asked to move for balance purposes on a jet the size of the 757 or larger aircraft. I have some doubts that this is a common practice for this to be worked out so late in the game.I can understand that a cargo door malfunction could be discovered after the normal time that weight & balance considerations are made, hence the reasons for this airline to try and get passengers to move at the last minute. But when you hear the disembarking passengers say don't get on, wouldn't you wonder why? Would I have boarded? Considering the door and W&B necessities...probably (if sufficiently assured). Add the comments of the passengers coming off the plane, well I guess it depends on what they were saying.

The passengers had every right to not board the plane, but my God. If the Airline (a reputable one in this case!) tells me the door is jammed but safe, I'm getting on the plane to go home! :( It's also amazing how ignorant the average person is to weight issues. Just a few weeks ago I offered to take someone flying. This particular person assumed that they could invite others (each weighing an average of 150 pounds). It took some time to explain to them that four seats doesn't necessarily mean 4 people-- Especially in a 172 with extended wing tanks. :(

Depends on who is telling me the door is safe. Some years ago I was flying home on a Delta 727 out of Atlanta, sitting in the rear of the aircraft. In those days I was flying on average every 2-3 days, so although I hadn't flown an aircraft myself as PIC yet, I considered myself a well seasoned passenger and had already been flying over thirty years. As we were preparing to take off, I noticed the sound of the engine on the port side was unusually loud--and the whine was unbearable. I and another passenger dinged the flight attendant call button. The stupid (insert word here) chastised us for ringing the call button just before take off. We both said in unison "the door" when the flight attendant said "Oh, that's normal". I said "no, it is not, get someone back here" at which point she walked away. At that point several of us hit the call button, at which point another flight attendant came back. She said, half mockingly, "OK, I will get the co-pilot back here". The co-pilot ran back, heard the engine, sent both attendants back to their seats with a scowl, and sealed the door which had not been fully shut. Then he went up front and gave them about as scathing series of words as I ever heard a pilot give in public. When I got off the jet he pulled me aside and said "thank you" and I assume he did the same for the others who had joined me.This was during the period of time when Delta's accident and incident record was less than stellar and jokes were in abundance among my team about getting stuck on a Delta flight.I have no doubt we saved lives, or at least some eardrums, that day. Had the pilot been so cocky as to say--"trust me, I am a pilot, you are just a passenger" he would have both negligent and deserving of having his butt canned.In this day and age the plane would probably go down because people are afraid of being charged with "interfering with the flight crew". Since I still travel regularly, I know there's some very dictatorial flight crews out there and even if a wing were falling off, how you approach the subject can mean five hours with the TSA. Yes, there are ignorant passengers out there. But also ignorant pilots--I have often seen GA pilots say "I fly over gross all the time". I won't fly with them even if they have ten thousand hours. True, most passengers don't know about weight and balance and other odds and ends related to flight. How would they know otherwise? I don't go around calling my non-flying buddies ignorant just because they think a C172 could hold the front line of the Arizona Cardinals.No one is perfect and being a member of a flight crew, even the pilot, is no guarantee that one is always smarter than the some of the other souls onboard. If an airline were to tell me a jammed door was safe, based on my experience above and several others like it--I would be catching the next flight.Regards,John

It doesn't surprise me too much with the airline in question that the decision was poor. I have actually done some artwork for that same airline and what they initially wanted me to do was incredibly stupid, and on a shoestring budget too. I had to use FSX and Photoshop to fake some aerial shots of their aircraft because they were too cheap to shoot some real ones of their A320 in their new livery (and yes, I did download the livery from AVSIM and stick it on the default FSX Airbus). I won't go into the exact details here, but if I had done the illustration they had initially wanted, any passenger who saw it would have been mortified.

That's just sad....

Yup. But on the other hand, it does show how useful the AVSIM file library can be. It saved my &@($* on that occasion.Al

I have been a regular customer for all manner of airlines over that last 40+ years. While it has been a common occurrence to be asked to move to another seat for weight & balance purposes on small aircraft the likes of a EMB 120 etc... I have never been asked or heard of other passengers being asked to move for balance purposes on a jet the size of the 757 or larger aircraft. I have some doubts that this is a common practice for this to be worked out so late in the game.I can understand that a cargo door malfunction could be discovered after the normal time that weight & balance considerations are made, hence the reasons for this airline to try and get passengers to move at the last minute. But when you hear the disembarking passengers say don't get on, wouldn't you wonder why? Would I have boarded? Considering the door and W&B necessities...probably (if sufficiently assured). Add the comments of the passengers coming off the plane, well I guess it depends on what they were saying.

It's not so much common to move passengers on a large airliner as the weight ballance would be determined by placement of the cargo between the holds.

It's not so much common to move passengers on a large airliner as the weight ballance would be determined by placement of the cargo between the holds.

Yes, I know.In this particular case the cargo door malfunction limited the airline's ability to do this. I was merely disputing the airline representative's claim that this is common practice (for aircraft this size). While I'm sure someone can bare whiteness to an occurrence, I still doubt it could be considered common. Ron

"It was like they were being asked to fly in something that was being balanced out like a see-saw."Do these people not understand that that is always the case when flying on a commercial airliner or any airplane for that matter?Ignorance makes people fearful. And yes they are ignorant. It's not pejorative term in this case. They simply lack the expertise to make a judgement call, which is why they need to trust the pilots.

Yes, there are ignorant passengers out there. But also ignorant pilots--I have often seen GA pilots say "I fly over gross all the time". I won't fly with them even if they have ten thousand hours. True, most passengers don't know about weight and balance and other odds and ends related to flight. How would they know otherwise? I don't go around calling my non-flying buddies ignorant just because they think a C172 could hold the front line of the Arizona Cardinals.No one is perfect and being a member of a flight crew, even the pilot, is no guarantee that one is always smarter than the some of the other souls onboard. If an airline were to tell me a jammed door was safe, based on my experience above and several others like it--I would be catching the next flight.Regards,John

That reminds of a time flying out of Half Moon Bay, CA where I taxi up behind this Bonanza ready to take the active. The radio went something like this.Bonanza: "Bonanza Four Three Tango, taking runway 30, straight out departure."Me: "Ah, Bonanza Four Three Tango, your cargo door is open."Bonanza: "Oh, gee, thanks!"