Weight error nearly causes crash

Jimmy55

IT WOULD have been, aviation experts say, Australia's worst civil air disaster, and it was averted only by seconds. Details have emerged of how an Airbus carrying 275 passengers and 18 crew disappeared off radar screens soon after a botched take-off from Melbourne airport and narrowly avoided crashing into a densely populated residential area.
The Emirates Airlines plane bound for Dubai only just cleared a perimeter fence as it took off with great difficulty and struggled to gain altitude, after pilots miscalculated its weight by 100 tonnes. Flying low over houses, it vanished from view of the air traffic control tower shortly after 10.30pm and was invisible on radar screens, according to The Australian newspaper.

http://www.independent.ie/world-news/asia-pacific/weight-error-almost-caused-plane-crash-1886073.html

lord lucan

:eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek:

Methinks that pilot may just get a reprimand for that!!

Foggy43

Didn't this happen months ago. I can't open the link. If it is what I am thinking about both pilots were sacked and the aircraft was an A340-600.

EDIT: This is what I am thinking off http://www.arabianaerospace.aero/article.php?section=air-transport&article=emirates-in-tail-strike-at-melbourne

FlutterinBantam

Pilots should certainly have had a "ball park" figure of the appropriate TOW for the profile of the flight.Full load, standard fuel for the leg,a/c weight, should be with in 10- 20 tonnes even by the roughest calculation.

What did the weight and balance docs say I wonder??

To miscalculate by 100 tonnes is almost unbelievable.

lord lucan

Foggy43 wrote: »

Didn't this happen months ago. I can't open the link. If it is what I am thinking about both pilots were sacked and the aircraft was an A340-600.

EDIT: This is what I am thinking off http://www.arabianaerospace.aero/article.php?section=air-transport&article=emirates-in-tail-strike-at-melbourne

Thanks for the link Foggy. Good to see the Indo are up to date with the news!:p

Foggy43

It did happen 6 months ago and finally after opening the link, it looks like a press release by the Australian investigators.

The reason I remembered it is was due to that other incident in Toulousse last November. How no one was killed I will never know. Pre delivery engine power runs gone badly wrong....

http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/flightblogger/2007/11/etihad-a340600-accident-photos.html

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Foggy43
.... If it is what I am thinking about both pilots were sacked and the aircraft was an A340-600.

The pilots resigned apparently.

http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2009/04/01/324648/pilots-resign-after-emirates-a340-500-accident.html

Foggy43

View Profile wrote: »

The pilots resigned apparently.

http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2009/04/01/324648/pilots-resign-after-emirates-a340-500-accident.html

I'm afraid in the airline industry you get 2 options!
First to resign and not loose any pensions or funds built up and your slate stays clean.
The second is if you don't you will be sacked and you loose everything.

Those 2 pilots took the better option.

highlydebased

Was it a case of miscalculation or was it a case of one of the crew entering the gross weight and ZFW incorrectly into the FMGC and it not being cross checked?

Foggy43

The Independent is saying it is a preliminary report from the Australian authorities. We will have to wait for the full report which should tell us exactly how the error was made.

FlutterinBantam

Neon-Circles wrote: »

Was it a case of miscalculation or was it a case of one of the crew entering the gross weight and ZFW incorrectly into the FMGC and it not being cross checked?

Don't know what the ZFW would have to to with this particular event

skybus

Don't know what the ZFW would have to to with this particular event

I see where you are coming from with this in relation to ZFW. It's an airbus thing. It's quite possible alright that the incorrect ZFW was entered into the INIT page (the page where you enter aircraft weights in the flight computer) on the MCDU (the flight management computer) during pre flight checks. For example the Dry Operating Weight may have been put in by accident rather than ZFW. Sounds crazy I know but we don't know the circumstances of the situation they were in. If so, when the correct fuel weight was calculated and added to it by the pilots the computer would have given an incorrect take off weight.

I don't know the SOP's of that company but it's quite possible the pilots worked out their performance numbers based on these figures after entering the incorrect figures rather than before as is done in most companies and as such the error would not have been trapped. In the airline I work for this threat is minimised by loading the expected ZFW into the computer on arrival at the aircraft. When the loadsheet arrives you compare the expected with the actual and they should be roughly, within a few thousand kilos close to each other. If not it more than likely means a mistake has been made somewhere along the line. This procedure tends to catch the mistake immediately. Modern aircraft are great but they are still totally reliant on the person flying them. The aircraft engines would happily have thought they had sufficient power to get them airbourne at whatever thrust reduction was calculated by both these pilots.

My personal opinion of what happened is that they correctly calculated the correct take off thrust reduction required for the take off but entered it incorrectly in the appropriate computer. For example if the required reduction was 46 degrees I have a sneeky feeling that 64 was entered by mistake. Same figures just the other way around with devestating consequences. These numbers for the lay person are based on the amount you can safely reduce the power of an engine for a take off roll to minimise engine wear. On an airbus the higher the figure means less power from the engine. And obviously visa versa for the lower figure.

It's not good to speculate and it will be an interesting read when the report comes out.