A software mistake caused a Tui flight to take off heavier than expected as female passengers using the title “Miss” were classified as children, an investigation has found.
It's enough to make you laugh, isn't it? How could the aircraft industry allow such a thing to happen?
The departure from Birmingham airport to Majorca with 187 passengers on board was described as a “serious incident” by the Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB).
An update to the airline’s reservation system while its planes were grounded due to the coronavirus pandemic led to 38 passengers on the flight being allocated a child’s “standard weight” of 35kg as opposed to the adult figure of 69kg.
Well, amazingly, it turns out that going with the cheapest bidder isn't always the wisest idea. Who could have imagined that?
Investigators described the glitch as “a simple flaw” in an IT system. It was programmed in an unnamed foreign country where the title “Miss” is used for a child and “Ms” for an adult female.
And did no-one from the UK get hired to oversee what Sanjay and his brother were doing in their little hut in the Punjab?
12 comments:
Surely 'Ms' means a huge-chinned aggressive feminazi Lesbian, but 'Miss' means an unmarried female of any age?
Why the feck don't they weight passengers? Or alternatively, if they had load transducers in the undercarriage, they would not only know the take-off weight, but probably how it is distributed.
I suspect that weighing the passengers would lead inevitably to fat shaming and we couldn't have that now could we?
... or some weigh bridges on the taxi ways?
It’s a while since I bought a plane ticket, but I seem to remember being asked to state whether any passengers in my party were under 18 and, if, so, to give their ages; surely that’s a far better indicator than the form of address.
As for weight, that allowance of 69 Kg per adult (woman?) worries me somewhat, given that studies report the average weight for an adult female in the UK rose from 70.2 Kg in 2010 to 70.6 Kg in 2016 and the upward trend appears to have continued since (to say nothing of the effect of recent lockdowns). Factor in the possibility of significant variation according to point of origin and holiday destination/type - eg skiers vs sun-seekers - and weighing passengers seems eminently sensible.
They don't need any of those when there's an existing solution: Check the ticket type for adult/child.
A few years ago an American airline crashed, 2003, because the average weight of population had increased, and the the assumed passenger weight entered for the total take off weight was based on old statistics.
Computers and software get blamed for anomalies.
Computers, at least before these self learning ones came along, do exactly as the software tells them. And the software is fixed. Problems arise because the software designer has missed something. And then whoever tests the system misses the same thing.
As a hardware engineer working with the end user I was often asked by the softie investigating a system "crash" "But why did he / you do that?"
Careful what you wish for - Chairman O'Leary has probably been looking to weigh passengers for quite a while!
Boarding a Grand Canyon helicopter tour a number of years ago, the check-in desk featured a weighing-scale panel built into the floor where the aspiring passenger was standing. The result of that weigh-in (only seen by the desk-clerk) produced an allocated seat in the chopper, presumably to balance the overall weight of that small batch of passengers.
Who needs dusky programmers when Avery can do it?
I think they should change the average weights for our US friends, one reason so many never traval outside of the US is they cannot fit in a passport photo booth.
Re weight distribution, Mudplugger reminds me of a foreign flight some years ago. As the engines started, the stewardess walked up the aisle scrutinising every passenger, then ordered half a dozen or so to change seats and move to other parts of the aircraft, in each case swapping a slim individual with one of considerably more generous proportions. There were no arguments, just polite greetings and handshakes at their new locations. My neighbour, who spoke some English, kindly explained that this was the usual procedure ‘for making the balance’.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, this turned out to be one of the places where the successful landing at our destination was greeted with a fervent round of applause.
I don't travel any more (or didn't pre covid) but when I used to I always said that each passenger should be given an overall weight allowance that would cover themselves plus luggage Thus allowing thin people more luggage.......I was of course quite thin at the time!
"Why the feck don't they weight passengers? "
That would be 'fattist', I expect, as Stonyground points out...
"...surely that’s a far better indicator than the form of address."
Well, you've then got to factor in the 'obesity epidemic' supposedly laying waste to our younger generation...
Good to see you back, Macheath!
"Computers, at least before these self learning ones came along, do exactly as the software tells them."
Spot on!
"Perhaps unsurprisingly, this turned out to be one of the places where the successful landing at our destination was greeted with a fervent round of applause."
I remember that, on my first internal flight in the States! I wondered what aviation emergency I'd somehow missed...
"Thus allowing thin people more luggage.......I was of course quite thin at the time!"
๐
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