castie

I am wondering if anyone can give an explanation.

A friend was on this flight.
When it landed in Heathrow they were not allowed out of their seats until cargo was removed it seems.

Anyone here able to confirm the issue with this flight?

Chris9642

Was it a NEO? Isn’t there some concerns being discussed (albeit in the press so maybe not accurate) about balance issues with Neos loaded in a certain way ?

castie

Looked it up on FR and was showing a 16 year old 320.

G-BUSI

16th is listed as a CEO G-EUYV. (only 5 years old incidentally) NEO G-TTNA was on this on 18th Sept.

YacozA

This generally happens when they are concerned that the plane could become tail heavy no?
Don't believe they make a version of the 737 Tail Stick for the A320.
https://www.quora.com/Boeing-is-comi...plague-the-900

alex67500

We've had a couple of threads asking this recently, and yes it's for balance.

Greenpen

What happened at embarkation? Was everyone seated and strapped in and then waited as the cargo was loaded?

nd100

Not just in the press. I was on a flight on Monday this week where we boarded on time. FO announced we had a slight slot delay and would be pushing back 10 minutes late. 10 minutes passed, FO came on again and said we had a further delay because the loaders had just realised that there was a balance issue and they had to move the luggage around before we could depart. This was the BA770 LHR-OSL and the aircraft was A320neo G-TTNJ.
Can anyone shed any further light on this? Why does the neo have this problem?

Schind

It's to do with the centre of gravity. It's a theoretical (?) risk discovered during lab testing recently.
I'm guessing that, due to the 737Max issues, Airbus have been double checking their aircraft to see if there's anything similar that could happen to them.

There are plenty of references to it in the aviation media online. From FlightGlobal's article - https://www.flightglobal.com/news/ar...p-scen-460046/

"Airbus has determined that the A320neo is potentially vulnerable to an angle-of-attack protection weakness which could result in excessive pitch attitude under certain circumstances.
The condition is "different" from the excessive-pitch anomaly recently discovered during analysis of the larger A321neo, says the European Union Aviation Safety Agency, although it appears outwardly similar.
EASA stresses that the condition has never been encountered during A320neo operations. But it says that a "reduced efficiency" of the aircraft's angle-of-attack protection under certain flight configurations, and in combination with specific commanded manoeuvres from the crew, could lead to excessive pitch and higher workload.
The scenario has been uncovered during analysis and laboratory testing of the A320neo flight-control laws

The changes limit the centre-of-gravity envelope for the aircraft. Airbus has also issued loading recommendations."