Investigators Probe Jetstar Plane’s “Nose Heavy” Takeoff

Critical weight and balance issues forced the crew of a Jetstar flight to redistribute passengers in the cabin following a treacherous takeoff.

A routine takeoff from Melbourne Airport (MEL) nearly turned disastrous, forcing pilots to take some unusual steps to correct a weight distribution problem that caused the plane to depart nose heavy. According to Australian Broadcast Corporation (ABC) News, to compensate for the balance complications, the captain of the Jetstar flight bound for Perth Airport (PER) was forced to “pull back almost completely on the controls in order to lift the nose off the runway.”

The October 29 incident is being investigated by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB). According to preliminary reports, the fight crew determined that the Airbus A-321 departed nose heavy when they entered passenger seating locations into the plane’s flight computer after the rather disconcerting takeoff.

“Passengers were relocated within the aircraft cabin to return the aircraft to within allowable limits for the remainder of the flight and landing,” ATSB sources told ABC News.

The flight was able to continue on to PER, where it landed safely without incident, but investigators say the October 29 episode is only the latest instance of a flawed load plan causing problems for Jetstar crews. The ATSB has also opened an inquiry into a Jetstar flight that departed on October 19 carrying 16 additional passengers that the pilot was not informed were on the flight. In this case as well, pilots were forced to re-enter load data into flight computers after takeoff.

“Since these incidents took place in October, we have put additional measures in place to check our flights have been loaded correctly and that aircraft weight and balance is properly accounted for,” a Jetstar spokesman told ABC News. ”We’ve had no flights operate with this type of error since we introduced these measures.”

[Photo: Wikipedia]