OK, first person to even try to respond to the last paragraph of 'picus' post above gets an automatic 'PPRuNe headache'. (Talk about triggering a thread diversion!
)
There is no way this is just going to 'die down'. Someone opened the Pandoras Box and no matter how much some of you want me to remove the ASR, it has been published and it is being discussed. If someone had bothered to 'edit' the ASR into something a bit more 'journalistic' it would still be the same info. At least the ASR is about as factual you can get at this moment of time.
A few people still seem to be amazed that this is the 21st century and information can and will be spread very rapidly. At least those pilots who operate out of JNB will be able to take note that perhaps they need to take a bit more interest in their loadsheets because of this incident. They will be aware that there has been a problem and can take any necessary actions to double check anything that they may feel needs attention.
No one is apportioning blame and anyone who does at this stage is probably not an airline pilot but someone with an ego that is just looking for attention. Anyone trying to point a finger at Emirates at this stage only shows themselves to be disgruntled and probably someone who didn't make the grade for them and so shouldn't be afforded the dignity of a response. As discussed, there appears to have been a weight and balance problem at this stage and an investigation is underway. We, as professional pilots can and should be able to discuss this and similar issues without fear or recrimination. We would be discussing these issues privately so why not widen the pilot participation? Yes, this is a publicly accessible forum but the issue under discussion is not some secret conspiracy. Most of us can spot a 'pretender' a mile off and they should be ignored. The rest of the debate will involve speculation, hopefully from an educated point of view.
The few posters who are unable to keep the debate mature enough because they either have to tag on some kind of infantile snipe and then get all upset and foulmouthed because they don't like the response to their snipes had better learn to control their emotions a bit better. This is a serious discussion about an incident that could have ended as a disaster but didn't because of the professionalism and skill of the crew. Even if it ended up as pilot error, which is highly unlikely in this incident, it is never just pilot error and there are often unforeseen elements that contribute to any incident. Those of you who enjoy armchair quarterbacking surely have either not had an incident yet and believe that you are infallible. Definitely not a trait most of us would want on the flight deck.
Incidents such as these are a fact of life. They are not pleasant for the company or the crews and trying to brush it under the carpet is akin to burying ones head in the sand. Speculation is natural and if we can all learn something from it on here then it has at least achieved something positive. So what if the media follow up on it. Do any of you really believe that the majority of the media give a toss whether what they report is accurate? Of course they don't and we should all learn to give the media the respect it deserves... contempt. Passengers who are afraid of flying will still be afraid of flying and those that aren't are not likely to any less afraid because of the sensationalist stuff they read either.
This thread manages to highlight to many of us that what we read on the loadsheet and sign for means nothing if the people producing it have not checked that it is correct. Whether at JNB or any other airport we operate into all over the world, any pilots reading this thread will at least think twice about it and that is probably a good thing.