Laden Haphazards

The Dutch National Aerospace Laboratory is touting a finding that aircraft weight and balance (W&B) problems in Europe are "ten times worse" than in North America. After the MK airlines crash in Halifax in 2004 was put down to a tricky trap in a Boeing Laptop Tools' software, the Laboratory started examining crash records world-wide between 1970 and 2005. It examined 82 accidents and found that passenger-carriers had experienced 61% of the W&B events and freighters the remaining 39%. Most accidents were found to occur on takeoff. The main risks are incorrect loadsheets, wrong conversion factors, incorrectly marked weights and incorrectly distributed loading fore-aft. The pressure of time, trans-shipping and schedule was a common denominator, the Laboratory found. An aft Center of Gravity and cargo-shifting caused by improper load securing were the greatest hazards. It's not known whether ramp accidents where aircraft sit on their tails during loading/unloading (due to lack of a tail-prop) were being factored in.

Almost all the weight and balance related accidents in the US were to freighters. In Africa it was the other way round, with most loading accidents occurring to passenger flights. The classic example was a 727 that failed to get airborne in Cotonou Benin on Dec 25th 2003. Operated by UTA, a Lebanese charter airline, the aircraft (3X-GDO) crashed into a building at the runway's end, 118m into the overrun. It was established that some passengers were standing for takeoff. The exact number who perished could not be established, but was thought to be around 136. Investigators found that the CofG was so far forward, due to improper pax and cargo distribution, that the pilot had been unable to rotate for lift-off.

The incidence of weight-stealing by shippers and their agents is unknown but suspected to be a variable feast worldwide. It's not known whether any major airport anywhere utilizes a weighbridge. However some aircraft have incorporated rough scales in their undercarriages, although these are not reputed to be accurate.