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UAL 872 aborted takeoff today due to overweight loading.

UAL 872 aborted takeoff today due to overweight loading.

Old Aug 6, 2012, 2:40 pm
  #46  
 
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Originally Posted by aluminumdriver
could be, but it only fell apart about a month ago. New procedure, new people, new something happened.

AD



you're incorrect. At least on the UAL side, we rarely have final weights prior to push back. A good day is prior to taxi, but that is rare as well. Usually on taxi out, over the past couple months many times sitting #1 waiting and having to ping load planning for the numbers.

The pilots wouldn't take off knowing they were overweight. The problem was the "updated" numbers being sent after they're on takeoff roll or airborne.

AD
sorry, forgot to state...........this procedure for CO load planning.
CALMSP is offline  
Old Aug 6, 2012, 3:16 pm
  #47  
 
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: FL 290 through FL390
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Originally Posted by cjsnell
I was on UAL 872 today on the SFO-DEN leg. TSA was doing additional screening at the gate when we boarded. We left the gate about an hour late and we had started our takeoff roll when the pilot cut power and slammed on the brakes. He immediately came on the intercom and said that we were "overweight" and that we were returning to the gate to remove baggage. Sounded really fishy to me. Anyone know what happened? In all my years of travel, I've never seen this.
Is there perhaps more to this story than just what you described? Pilots don't fudge things with takeoff performance. If at any time during the takeoff they don't think continuing is in everybody's best interest, they won't continue the takeoff. Nothing "fishy" about it. United pilots are very good at what they do. No need to second guess your pilots. They know what they're doing.

FAB

Originally Posted by arisaa
Isn't it a bit late to be doing that on the take-off roll? That said, I have had a pilot power down during the take-off roll, extend the flaps, then power up and take off.
Maybe on a non-airline flight, or a flight in a turboprop airplane where there was way more runway available than required, but on part 121 jet airline, I seriously doubt it.


FAB

Originally Posted by mitchmu
Honestly, that isn't good enough.

If this regime cared about our safety, then you, as a pilot, should have received a clear piece of communication that explains the cause of the problem, describes the plan to fix it, and provides a date for fixing it.

The fact that you have to rely on nothing more than "hope", five full months after Jeff threw UA into the garbage to replace it with a crappy cheapo version of CO, for something that has important safety implications tells me that it's not a priority for them. And, if pilots are being forced to manually do tasks that used to be done automatically, this indicates the removal of an automated safety control, and therefore, the introduction of a new safety risk. All we need is for one distracted pilot to forget, to perform that calculation incorrectly, or to fail to detect that condition before the critical moment, on a day when the plane is overweighted or not properly balanced and it encounters a critical situation - then what happens to that flight?

All of us have been holding our breaths and "hoping" things will get better for 5 months. In that time, we've had little evidence to support that hope.
Things like this are the reason that we don't just look at numbers before we head on out.

One of the many criteria that we use to decide to continue a takeoff is what's known as "the perception that the airplane is unsafe or unable to fly". This ranges from previous experience of perhaps expecting to have a certain amount of runway remaining at a certain airspeed (or groundspeed) and not seeing it, to having a gut feeling that something isn't right. Yes, we rely on more than pure numbers when we make the decision to continue a takeoff. Our focus becomes more concentrated on the more serious things as we pick up speed.

In addition to what AD posted, which was one of my first thoughts, another could be that the pilots expected to be going faster at a certain point, or have more runway remaining at a certain speed, both of which could be related to increased aircraft weight. That scenario could be the result of having improper final weight criteria sent to them prior to takeoff.

So, everyone gets the benefit of our intuition and experience as an additional safety net.

Yes, you're right that it isn't good enough, but the question is, what's good enough? Who decides? No system is perfect, and to be fair, our Flight Operations and training center, along with the pilots' own input makes it better all the time. But the last couple of years with transitioning to the CO way of doing most things has been a prime example of the value of our experience in catching little things before they become big things, at least in the Flight Dept. Wish I could say the same in a few other departments

FAB

Originally Posted by aluminumdriver
It may not be good enough, but it's really all I can say on a public forum. The FAA, company and pilots are aware of the issue. Most of the mistakes have not been a safety issue, but more a legal dispatch issue from what I see. Example would be we have to get a new flight plan if our weight goes up by 2000lbs. We're taking off at 130,000 and good up to 145,000 lbs at that flap setting and power. We get a message after takeoff that our weight went up 2000 lbs. Well, we're well clear of our allowable takeoff weight, but I'm illegal for not getting a new flight plan prior to takeoff. So not really a safety issue but a dispatch problem. However, until we read the message, we don't really know. Many pilots have just gone to planning for max takeoff power or bumping up their speeds just in case there are errors, so we're well above the safety margin. The problem hasn't been with CG or balance issues at all.

Not only that, but our takeoff numbers don't even become relevant unless we lose an engine on takeoff and continue, otherwise with all engines we're well above our takeoff performance numbers. Everything is based on worst case scenario of losing an engine at V1 and continuing.

You won't find me defending this management group for anything they've done with this merger, but I will say that we're not flying an unsafe airline, the pilots make sure of that.

AD
I totally agree! Otherwise, I would not be flying United's airplanes, and I don't think too many UA (that includes both Ex-Cons and us) pilots would.

FAB

Originally Posted by aluminumdriver
could be, but it only fell apart about a month ago. New procedure, new people, new something happened.

AD



you're incorrect. At least on the UAL side, we rarely have final weights prior to push back. A good day is prior to taxi, but that is rare as well. Usually on taxi out, over the past couple months many times sitting #1 waiting and having to ping load planning for the numbers.

The pilots wouldn't take off knowing they were overweight. The problem was the "updated" numbers being sent after they're on takeoff roll or airborne.

AD
I got updated takeoff weights once after we took off. They were so wrong that we landed at a higher calculated weight than we took off at. Granted, it was ORD DTW, but we burnt less fuel on the flight that the amount of the load planning error.

She was a little nose-heavy on rotation but since both engines were running, it was almost a non-event, other than a little retraining for the load planners.

FAB

Originally Posted by Angust
Too much food and booze in the front....offload some.


RJ's are always asking people to move if they need to redistribute weight. So there has to be some calc that says too much weight get rid of something.
Weight is one thing, load distribution is another. You can have one but not the other.

FAB

Last edited by iluv2fly; Aug 6, 2012 at 5:24 pm Reason: merge
freshairborne is offline  
Old Aug 6, 2012, 4:23 pm
  #48  
 
Join Date: Jul 2005
Posts: 2,324
Originally Posted by wpr8e
Thank you for your clear response.

Despite innuendo and insinuations of unsafe operations posted by a sUA pilot as God's truth, it's helpful to have a little balance.

The two airlines run things differently.
Despire your trying attempts at passive aggressiveness, your posts are uninformed attempts to do damage control for your company
tuolumne is offline  

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