c of g shift ?

[widgeon]

https://simpleflying.com/air-france-airbus-a350-center-of-gravity-shift/

I had not heard of this happening before , is the cargo not normally better secured

[340drvr]

Glad it worked out ok for this flight. There was a National cargo 747 years ago, crashed on takeoff from Bagram, cargo shifted.

[ProPax]

Unsecured container(s) - maybe. CG shift - no way. CG shift IS an emergency and is a "land immediately" situation. Citing "a passenger who wants to remain anonymous" is non-journalism at best, but truly is tabloid sensationalism. Air France is hardly an omnipowerful organization, and EU is not really the place where he could be fearing any repercussions. Comparing this to Bagram crash is comparing apples and oranges. In Bagram, 80 tons of armored vehicles snapped off their moorings and slammed into the bulkhead. Here, an LD3 container that weighs 2 tons max was hardly a danger to a 300-ton plane.

[J.O.]

Citing "a passenger who wants to remain anonymous" is non-journalism at best, but truly is tabloid sensationalism.

How many non-industry passengers would know that it's called an LD3 container?

[DaveReidUK]

How many non-industry passengers would know that it's called an LD3 container?

Why are you assuming that he/she is a non-industry passenger ?

[PaulH1]

I remember quite a few years ago dropping 36 paras out of a DC3. We were flying, or trying to, at 10 Kts above the stall. 36 paras at the back of the aeroplane put it out of aft C of G limits. When they had all jumped 15 seconds later we were on forward C of G limits. The stick went from full forward to well aft in this period and holding it off the stall was difficult to say the least!!

[340drvr]

…….. Comparing this to Bagram crash is comparing apples and oranges. In Bagram, 80 tons of armored vehicles snapped off their moorings and slammed into the bulkhead. Here, an LD3 container that weighs 2 tons max was hardly a danger to a 300-ton plane.

Good point.

[dixi188]

Reminds me of the movie "Castaway" with Tom Hanks. The FEDEX containers were banging around all over the place. The loaders should have been sacked.

Re. AF - If one container is loose, how do you know others are not loose also. Divert = Good Decision.

[Rarife]

https://simpleflying.com/air-france-airbus-a350-center-of-gravity-shift/

I had not heard of this happening before , is the cargo not normally better secured

As was already mentioned if it was one ULD it could not probably move CG that much even though it had traveled whole hold. Maximum weight of LD3 is under 1600 kg but it is mostly up to 1 ton, rarely about 1200 kg. I just checked with a manual and moving one ton from CPT2 to CPT 1 is MAC change by aprox. 0,3% on A350-1000. Don't have -900.

However this can happen. We had problems with A330/A340 where the locks could unlock themselves very easily. You could just slap the lock and just fall. It was said the be fixed when A350s come. Well, there are A350 now but we still have to load them as before because of this problem. Other company with A350 has no problem with that.

[malanda]

The article says "many of the LD3 containers in the hold were not secured" (not sure how they'd know this)

[Chris2303]

I was on a Pan Am 747 LAX-SEA just before Tenerife and the cans were banging around underneath the floor in turbulence.

I assumed that they were banging against the stops and possibly each other but not that they were unrestrained.

[Anilv]

Reminds me of the movie "Castaway" with Tom Hanks. The FEDEX containers were banging around all over the place. The loaders should have been sacked..

I have worked with Fedex, all holds are checked and verified by separate persons and any reports of unlocked ULDs are investigated. I'm surprised that Fedex gave approval for that scene.

Having said that, all airlines state that all locks must be serviceable. If one is missing then the position should remain void (empty) or the weight limit is reduced (LH has this in their Groud Ops Manual). There are, however, some carriers which do not ensure that the aircraft are serviceable so the loaders are left on their own to decide how best to lock the units. Surprisingly some airlines you'd expect to be good at this were quite shocking in their attitude to locks. One major European carrier was shockingly bad.

Anilv

[MechEngr]

At some point just having them loose without regard to CG is a bad bad thing waiting to happen.