Originally Posted by
tdracer
There was a crash of a turboprop several years back that was attributed to the aircraft being way overweight (and out of CG limits) because they used 50 year old average values for passenger and baggage weight.
If I am not mistaken this is a reference to a Beech 1900 accident in the US, which was certainly suspected of this being the case, they had a muscular sports team all sat at the back, but was later traced to other factors.
Believe it or not, back in the pioneer 1920s days of aviation passengers were weighed and the fare covered passenger AND baggage up to a given weight, thereupon a surcharge. Jack Bamford, the Air France station manager in London from the 1920s to the 1960s, describes the process in his autobiography. The dial of the scales only faced the agent, not the passengers, to preserve ladies' modesty.
BTW, many years ago I arrived at my destination for a ski trip and was one of about 20 people whose baggage hadn't been loaded because they otherwise would have been overweight (737-200). Tough to go skiing without gear
This sort of nonsense really should be regarded as much of failure as denied boarding of the passenger, and should be reportable to the CAA. It is often concealed by pretending the baggage has been mishandled, when in practice it has been deliberately left off to prevent the costs of a fuel stop en-route. Tough.