From the widely expressed amazement, disbelief, indignation and wild excuses posted here I get the impression that aviation in the western world, where most of out posters come from, has so long been so regulated and constrained that large numbers of those "associated" with it have lost sight of the fact that elsewhere, aviation may be largely unregulated to any meaningful degree and operates on a similar ethos to a local trucking company. In addition these regions are nowhere near so anal and fanatical about safety to the n'th degree, or of unquestioning adherence to rules to the n'th degree as we are.
S America is the focus for this at present but Africa is right up there too, as are parts of SE Asia - Indonesia for example where accident rates are so horrific that whole nations are banned from ops into Europe and N America.
These places often take detail like MAUW or min fuel as just that, a detail, a number in a manual. They know they can take 20, 30% more cargo or 10% less fuel and still fly so they do, secure in the knowledge that no Flt Ops Inspector is going to scrutinise every single loadsheet and fuel plan, or if one tried he could be induced not to.
This latest accident appears, from youtube postings , to have been part of a habitual behaviour by the operator and we know the previous accident at Medellin was too. Habitual gross abuse of limitations is rife in many parts of the world and is not entirely unknown in the West, it's just much rarer there.
Cries of "but surely no professional pilot would..." or that "ATC would have ..." are indicative of a narrow and on occasion surprisingly naiive perspective on a global industry and do not reflect the reality of aviation, particularly cargo aviation across much of the world.
Last edited by noflynomore; 22nd Dec 2016 at 12:08.