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Schoolkids tip balance of Qantas plane

נשלח לפני לפני 9 שנים

A Qantas passenger jet became "nose-heavy" during take off from Canberra Airport because sales staff over-estimated the weight of a large group of primary school children on board by several tonnes. The group of 87 school children had mistakenly been classified as adults during the booking process. It meant they were each assigned the standard weight for an adult of 87 kilogram instead of 32 kilograms for a child, a miscalculation which meant that the Boeing 737 appeared… (www.smh.com.au) עוד...

James Middleton

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Michael Fuquay לפני 9 שנים 14

I guess the Captain thought they were American school children

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Bernie20910 לפני 9 שנים 4

Nah, they were just so rude and obnoxious they thought they were adults.

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napleskid לפני 9 שנים 2

:)

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GolfrGuy7 לפני 9 שנים 9

"The miscalculation meant that the Boeing 737 appeared "nose-heavy" during take off, requiring the captain to pull pack on his elevator controls to rotate the aircraft and lift off from the runway at Canberra Airport."

And this is different than a normal takeoff because?

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mike SUT לפני 9 שנים 2

Obviously never flown a nose heavy aircraft before...I had a 767 that was misloaded and when I went to rotate not only did it take genuine effort to do so, but required constant trim for the first few seconds to get a better feel on the controls.....had I lost an engine prior to rotate, or at rotate, this would have been a bigger bag of snakes to contend with.

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Michael Fuquay לפני 9 שנים 0

I know, right? How dare he rotate the aircraft off the runway on a takeoff. LOL!

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Tim Duggan לפני 9 שנים 4

While an entertaining story, hardly "earth-shattering". A bit over-stated. If anything, the error was on the side of safety, since the payload was OVER-estimated.

Their V-speeds were a few knots higher. The "nose-heavy" claim is pure baloney. That's what stabilizer trim is for.

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Richard Bowman לפני 9 שנים 1

Elevator(stab) trim is dialed in from the weight and balance calcs. If all those kids sat in the rear of the aircraft and adults sat in the forward section to give the adults a bit of peace from excited kids, the trim could be significantly out of whack.
A few knots more airspeed would indeed correct the problem as stated. However, the problem must be recognized and correction enacted. All dependant upon the pilot, runway length, an obstacle clearance at the end of the runway.
All anomalies in expected aircraft performance should be avoided. Crashes usually occur as a result of several anomalies occurring simultaneously.

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Tim Duggan לפני 9 שנים 1

I know this, am typed on the B737 (and the B757.767 and DC9).

The "green band" on the 737 Stab Trim range is from about 2 - 6 units nose up.
(Link to an image: http://www.dutchops.com/Portfolio_Marcel/Articles/Flight%20Controls/Images/Stabilizer_Trim.jpg)

Trim moves fast enough to allow for a bit of re-trim during rotation, if it doesn't "feel" right. Over the years I've had that experience...also on the B727 (right-seat).

In fact, it's probably happened at least once on every large airplane I've flown.

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Richard Bowman לפני 9 שנים 1

Already knew you were ATP rated. Therefore I was very surprised at your attitude re this occurrence. I would be very surprised if any carrier that you represent, would concur with your attitude. Wouldn't have occurred to me to even continue with this thread or bring up your rating if you hadn't continued to insist that it's not a big deal where lives are at stake.
Just suppose there occurred a stick shaker problem at the same time. A malfunctioning stall warning. What do you do now? Continue to pull back on the stick or put the nose down? Lest you again minimize the problem, the stick shaker sounded off on takeoff on a 727 on rotation and Post V2 on a flight and a fuel dump of 10,000 lbs was required before landing. All the time the stick shaker was going. What caused the problem? Out of trim,or a malfunctioning airspeed indicator etc. As I have stated. All anomalies on takeoff and landing have to be taken seriously, even a nose wheel remaining stuck to the tarmac a little beyond what was expected. Even an ATP can become blasé about flight.
The old saw about old and bold pilots again comes to mind. Long life and lots of luck sir.

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Tim Duggan לפני 9 שנים 1

QUOTE: "Out of trim,or a malfunctioning airspeed indicator ..."

RE: a stick shaker, being out of trim won't cause it. It's an airspeed/AOA determination (and a false shaker can be caused by bad ADC inputs), but airspeed can be independently verified (at least three A/S indicators) and further, a safe (and practiced) pitch and power combination is always possible to stabilize the airplane.

RE: Qantas incident, the B737 is very, very forgiving and this story a bit over-blown. BTW, the fact that the green band (or, "TakeOff" range) is only 4 units? Rarely do you ever see less than 4 ANU, nor more than 5 ANU (and quite frankly, the indicator isn't all that accurate!! I've seen slight differences, left to right side).

One or two "blips" on the "pickle switches" (pair of electric contacts on the control wheels) will correct a slight out-of-trim situation...it's intuitive for experienced pilots, and the trim moves very fast (at slower speeds, and with flaps extended).

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Richard Bowman לפני 9 שנים 1

Agreed. The out of trim situation, will not cause the stick shaker to kick in.
My point was that the stick shaker and malfunctioning A/S indicator are 2 anomalies occurring simultaneously. One demands a trim up and the other demands nose down. Two conflicting anomalies at low altitude. The shaker/stall was a true incident. The point I was trying to make was that all incidents should be reported. The next time the same mistake could cause fatalities should it occur in conjunction with other problems.
BTW with the stick shaker rattling and doing its thing, all A/S indicators had different readings. It was a night flight and after dumping fuel, required a rather high speed approach and all of the runway available.

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Bernie20910 לפני 9 שנים 3

I believe Tim's point was that writing a breathless news article about this and treating it like a narrowly averted disaster is just sensationalist journalism, akin to the screaming headlines seen on supermarket tabloids and the like. Yes, it was a serious matter that shouldn't have happened, and needs to be prevented from happening again in the future, but it's not exactly a flaming bus full of nuns going off a cliff.

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Richard Bowman לפני 9 שנים 1

I do agree that the press and news agencies exaggerate to increase their market share.
It would be informative to know just how serious the weight and balance issue was considered by the PIC, and how and why the press got the story.

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Jerry Sterner לפני 9 שנים 2

I think that probably includes their carry on.

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FedExCargoPilot לפני 9 שנים 2

Average weight of adult 87??? Wow

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Wolfgang Prigge לפני 9 שנים 2

87 kg means about 192 pounds, sound a bit much as average for male and female adults. Is this really the standard weight used in calculating?

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Rohan Lynds לפני 9 שנים 2

isn't it 170lbs or 77 kilos?

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John Bergmans לפני 9 שנים 1

Being an engineer by training but only an enthusiast when it comes to airplanes, I always assumed that large aircraft had load cells in the landing gear to measure total weight and the location of the center-of-gravity before takeoff. If that's not the case, does anyone know why these values aren't measured directly?

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Richard Bowman לפני 9 שנים 1

The amount of elevator trim is calculated by the weight and balance,as determined by the weight of the passengers, fuel load,and cargo,and the placement of each in the aircraft. The amount of trim dialed in is determined by the flight plan as dialed in or downloaded to the FMS. Personally, I don't know the figures used, as many of the respondents to this news obviously do.
The calculations are usually made by the flight planners, and not the aircrew. The aircrew usually check the figures but GIGO can occurr. If the figures used are garbage, so is the result.
On rotation, the crew applies back pressure on the stick, and if the calculations are correct, the nose wheel lifts off and the plane begins to climb.
However, if the weight is too far forward, because the aft weight is too light, the nose wheel will remain on the tarmac,and if too far out of balance, run out of runway quickly.
I don't know the truth to this story, but it seems to me that many wannabe pilots on this forum do.

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Martie Williams לפני 9 שנים 1

I only fly SEL airplanes, but I'm wondering if the kids had all been placed in the front of the airplane, would this have made the pilot flying's job even more difficult?

As to the average weight of adults, is it possible Qantas adds a bit for carry-on luggage, or does that get weighed separately at check in?

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Kevin Cooney לפני 9 שנים 1

I thought aircraft had load sensors on the landing gear and that info was available to the flight crew? Flight attendants often ask passengers to move fore or aft to improve weight and balance.

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Kevin Cooney לפני 9 שנים 1

...at least on smaller aircraft I've seen passengers asked to move fore or aft.

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Richard Bowman לפני 9 שנים 1

Fuel and baggage can be allocated to specific areas of the aircraft to give a good weight and balance solution.
The passengers on the other hand can and often do move around the cabin. If a football team for instance all crammed into a rear washroom, the auto flight trim would try to compensate. If a second team stood outside the same washroom door the autotrim might have difficulty compensating.

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MultiComm לפני 9 שנים 1

Am I reading this wrong or are the facts backwards?

It states the aircraft appeared nose heavy condition but then says the captain maintained control pressure to avoid striking the tail.

The aircraft WOULD have been nose heavy since the kids were in the back, but the computers would have told the pilots "all is good".

In reality, the pilot would have under rotated (reduced climb angle) since he thought the balance was normal when it was actually forward of CG.

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Richard Bowman לפני 9 שנים 1

In hauling back on the yolk beyond what was to be normally expected, he could have caused a tail strike.
Each aircraft has an optimum angle for take off. In hauling back on the yolk he could have exceeded that angle.

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MultiComm לפני 9 שנים 2

I get that but the fact is the aircraft WAS nose heavy and lighter than "planned" so if anything it would have taken more force to rotate (forward CG) which would have been harder to create a tail strike all while taking less runway than expected.

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Tim Duggan לפני 9 שנים 1

Even if the C/G was more forward than the Load Planning computations, this is certainly not a "big deal".

I mean....professional pilots understand their airplane! It is an AFT C/G that is a real (possible) or potential safety issue.

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MultiComm לפני 9 שנים 1

I understand this as well, I too fly for the airlines...just splitting hairs with the tech specs of the article.

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JENNIFER JORDAN לפני 9 שנים 1

I believe there are lower standards of working English with that Australian outfit that published this 'story's for the mind boggles at times.

Surely it was an UNDERESTIMATION!

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Bernie20910 לפני 9 שנים 1

Ah, you're an English expert I see.

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JENNIFER JORDAN לפני 9 שנים 1

Perhaps maybe but just a little irritated with basic ineptitude.

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JENNIFER JORDAN לפני 9 שנים 1

Is that so out of order?

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Bernie20910 לפני 9 שנים 1

One of these days, soon I hope, you'll get the hang of how the reply function works on here, and your posts will start to make sense. Until that glorious day though I'm afraid that the only thing I see out of order here is this post.

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alan parsons לפני 9 שנים 1

Don't Believe a word of this report.

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Jimmy Robinson לפני 9 שנים 0

Not to trample on free speech, but I comments need to be kept clean of 'language'. This is not the place for it.

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Jimmy Robinson לפני 9 שנים 2

Well . . . looking closer, I now see that the 'f' word has an l in it, something I didn't notice before. Still, it's awfully close to it's cousin.

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