http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/business/schoolkids-tip-balance-of-qantas-plane-20140903-10bv5i.html

The News Storey says that the Captain had to Pull back on the elevator controls to rotate the Aircraft. ..........  That's How you take off!!!!!!!!!! Halfwits.   I doubt being 5 tone nose heavy in a 737 is to bad if it had been tail heavy maybe.

Fantastic story link, Clayton.

Maybe I'm not mentally switched on today but if the planes load is lighter then actual and the trim is set for the incorrect heavier load balance, would not the aircraft have actually tried to lift off earlier then expected due to incorrect trim setting and needed forward pressure on the yolk to bring the nose down and also avoid a tailstrike?

The News Storey says that the Captain had to Pull back on the elevator controls to rotate the Aircraft. ..........  That's How you take off!!!!!!!!!! Halfwits.   I doubt being 5 tone nose heavy in a 737 is to bad if it had been tail heavy maybe.

 

Having been living in the area when this one happened and my partners cousin was one of the crew that was killed on Flight 1602:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MK_Airlines_Flight_1602

 

Mistakes in weights and balances is not a laughing matter. EVER

 

The amount of weight is not at issue but the fact that there was a miscalculation in weight meant that if the weight was beyond the limits they could have crashed. It has happened before.

 

Your comment is ridiculous all things considered. Reality is when people make mistakes in aviation people can die.

Maybe I'm not mentally switched on today but if the planes load is lighter then actual and the trim is set for the incorrect heavier load balance, would not the aircraft have actually tried to lift off earlier then expected due to incorrect trim setting and needed forward pressure on the yolk to bring the nose down and also avoid a tailstrike?

If they were using full weights instead of half weights as they should have, the CG would probably have been calculated further aft than it truely was. From that, a lesser nose up trim setting would have been prescribed, causing the pilot to have to pull further back on the elevator during rotation than expected. Mitigating this would have been the rotation at a higher than necessary speed for the weight, possibly causing the aircraft to rotate very quickly once it did begin the rotation.

I heard a story from my grandfather who was a PanAm FE that a DC10 had a tail strike out of Vegas on a charter flight for coin collectors. The weight and balance failed to account for the additional weight in coins that each of these 200+ passengers was carrying as carry-ons. 

Just wondering, couldn't modern jets do the W/B automatically?

If you install weightsensors in the landing gear then it can sense how much weight there is and how it is distributed.

Just wondering, couldn't modern jets do the W/B automatically?

If you install weightsensors in the landing gear then it can sense how much weight there is and how it is distributed.

 

It has probably been considered but I would say that with the abuse the main landing gear gets during landings you would have a hard time keeping them perfectly calibrated as a scale. 

Fantastic story link, Clayton.

thanks! thought you all would be quite interested as this does not happen too often ! so I posted it here.

Brings to mind the bigger question of average weights for adult passengers and how accurate they still are as many countries struggle with obesity, maybe time to rethink - but that would limit payloads and profitability...

Brings to mind the bigger question of average weights for adult passengers and how accurate they still are as many countries struggle with obesity, maybe time to rethink - but that would limit payloads and profitability...

 

Air Samoa has the right idea, they don't sell airline tickets, they charge according to your total weight including you and your luggage. For bigger customers they pay more but the airline will remove a seat in front of them to give them more room. Aircraft has a total weight so they sell that instead and it really doesn't matter how many people are on board. A flight with larger customers would mean less people and some seats removed but still the same profit as they still sold their total weight. Really doesn't matter to the airline how many people on board as long as they sell the total weight allowance.

 

http://www.samoaair.ws/index.php/booking-2/pay-by-weight

That's How you take off!!!!!!!!!! Halfwits. 

 

:lol: