jj243

Just a general question regarding an odd situation on DL 1012, Aug 31, MSP-SFO. 99 seats open pre-boarding. Figured there would be some sort of weight balancing on the flight. Gate agent made an announcement that anyone wanting an aisle to themselves should approach the podium. Obviously a pretty big line formed.

6 seats open in F, where I was seated. Gate agent was so busy, she didn�t clear anybody into F, but F did fill up, except for the seat next to mine. By the way, side note, guy boarding before me angrily shouted for a redcoat since his upgrade didn�t show on screen. Obviously he flies enough to know what a redcoat is, but not enough to know the machine will process it anyway. What a douche.

Last lady on looks kind of lost, then points at the vacant seat next to mine. I figure she had the last upgrade and was just late to gate. Sits down. As the plane is taxiing to the runway, flight attendant approaches and asks to see the lady�s boarding pass. Lady claims not to have it. Lady then tells the flight attendant that the gate agent told her to sit anywhere she likes. Flight attendant then first says, yes anywhere you�d like� in economy. She says there�s a gentleman in the back who wants to claim this seat as an upgrade. So, now I figure whoever got upgraded was a no-show, and the gate agent should have brought a passenger up but didn�t. Lady won�t move. Then flight attendant says, it�s actually for safety reasons. The plane needs to be balanced and she needs to sit back there. Lady doesn�t contest this, but now I�m wondering in my head whether that actually makes sense if another guy is just going to come up and replace her. Flight attendant says the pilot said she needs to move back or we�re stopping the flight, but plane also keeps moving, and at this point I think we�re second in line for takeoff. Lady goes back angrily (flight attendants were practically running her up the aisle-starting really to wonder if the pilots actually knew or not?) Guy never comes up. So, I got a nice first class row to myself. But now very confused.

So� if the plane needs equal weight distribution, is it normal for F to be full? Do we think the flight attendant was just using safety as an excuse to get her to move back to her class of travel (and the point about the upgrade waiting in back was just a gaffe)? But also, leaving one empty seat in row 4 of F doesn�t seem very �balanced� to me?

Scudsone

This was 100% to get her to move. Sucks for the guy in the back but I doubt the FA was ever going to upgrade him. If he didn�t get upgraded before boarding then his boarding pass still says 36B or whatever. You board you loose as they say here on FT.

FA should have said that if she refused to follow orders �police will be waiting at the jet bridge upon landing�

country_boy

Weight and balance is a real thing, but on anything bigger than a beach 1900/caravan, moving one passenger won’t solve the real problem ( it may fix the requirement), and it won’t do that if she isn’t told to take a particular range of seats.

Not to minimize the problem, people have died due to sloppy weight and balance, but since the airlines use a standard weight for passengers and bags, the seating is designed to achieve a center of gravity well inside the manufacturers requirement.

There was a funny report made to NASA’s ASRS about to pilots who took off in a single aisle airplane and noticed extremely sluggish behavior on take off and climb. The instruments all looked good, but they ate up a lot more runway than expected after rotation. The captain sent the FO into the cabin to observe any anomalous behavior, and the FO returned in seconds, saying it appeared as if they were carrying a professional football team. The pilot assumed that they had had an insane amount of gear in the cargo hold as well- yet the load weight assumed the standard weight per passenger ( I think less than 175 at the time)and checked bag.

ATOBTTR

There have also been incidents because of this. One such example is Arrow Air 1285R, which was operating on behalf of the US Government as a troop charter and crashed on takeoff out of Gander. Under-estimated weight was one of the contributing factors of the crash as the aircraft was carrying 248 military personnel where the average weight of the group was well above the standard average used for weight & balance calculations.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow_Air_Flight_1285R

HDQDD

That's one way to handle it, but if this pax wasn't going to move...this could have just escalated the situation. IMO, This is a case where lying to a customer was the path of least resistance. The pax lied to the FA, why not hit them back with their own medicine.

HDQDD

When I worked at UA, occasionally we would have cases where the containers/pallets would either not be locked in properly, or broke loose on takeoff. That can be tons of weight shifting from front to back. It can do serious damage (tail strike or worse) and is usually reported by the pilots and investigated.

ATOBTTR

And this is another one that�s led to catastrophic crashes. The 747 that crashed during takeoff at Bagram Air Base, Afghanistan 10 years ago was due to heavy cargo shifting after the straps securing it in place broke, causing the CG to shift beyond acceptable limits and making the aircraft stall and crash.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nati...nes_Flight_102

xooz

I have been asked (along with most everyone else) to move from business class to coach for takeoff. After we reached altitude,we were able to go back up front.

Jeff767

Airlines carrying troops or sports teams should be using weights specific for those activities. They do not use standard weights.

michab

It sounds like that wasn�t just a matter of weight shifting and unbalancing the aircraft, but rather actually breaking through the bulkhead and disabling the control surfaces.

ATOBTTR

You are correct - I thought it was the CG shift but forgot it was the shifting cargo smashing through the pressure bulkhead and damaging the flight control system that was the major contributor to the crash.