Originally Posted by
tcasblue
I came across this interesting diversion from a few years ago and initially wondered why they didn't continue to destination. But as a commenter on the site wrote, perhaps it would have been out of limits with a lesser fuel quantity....
"Incident: British Airways B744 at Toronto and Montreal on Jun 22nd 2016, mass and balance problemA British Airways Boeing 747-400, registration G-CIVJ performing flight BA-92 from Toronto,ON (Canada) to London Heathrow,EN (UK), was enroute at FL350 about 110nm eastnortheast of Montreal,QC (Canada) when the crew decided to turn around and divert to Montreal due to a cargo loading error. The aircraft landed safely on Montreal's runway 24R about 105 minutes after departure from Toronto and about 55 minutes after the decision to divert.The aircraft departed Montreal after about 2 hours on the ground and reached London with a delay of 3 hours.
A passenger reported cargo had been loaded into an invalid cargo bay. The aircraft diverted to have the cargo reloaded correctly.
According to information The Aviation Herald received a cargo container was erroneously loaded into bay C5 resulting in a mass and balance issue. The cargo was unloaded and correctly loaded."
Comment below....
"IMHO the cargo loading error could have been detected after the plane had left.
The cargo department informed the company and did a re-calculation with the actual cargo loads.
Probably the landing CG (with only reserve fuel on board) was out off limits, so they decided to make a safety landing with more fuel on boardat Montreal.(CG still in limits)"
Doubt it. You'd have to be miles off with a misplaced ULD. I know someone who nearly did it, but was picked up and even then was still in perf envelope.