Weigh air travelers, report on crash urges

Airlines should at least periodically make passengers step on a scale to make sure they have an accurate assessment of the weight a plane will be carrying, federal investigators said Thursday.

The recommendation arose from the National Transportation Safety Board's investigation of the crash of US Airways Express Flight 5481 last year at North Carolina's Charlotte-Douglas Airport. All 21 people aboard were killed.

The twin-engine plane, operated by Air Midwest, was virtually uncontrollable because of two fatal mistakes, the safety board concluded.

First, the airline's guidelines for estimating the weight of passengers and baggage were inaccurate. The pilots, therefore, didn't realize the plane's rear section was too heavy.

Second, mechanics had improperly rigged cables connected to the elevator, the tail flap that controls the up-and-down direction of the aircraft's nose. The errors meant the elevator's downward motion was restricted to half its normal range, according to the NTSB.

Without a fully maneuverable elevator, the pilots couldn't force the nose of the plane down to compensate for its heavy tail, investigators said.

As a result, the plane pitched sharply upward just seconds after takeoff, then fell out of the sky.

World and national headlines

© 2006 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg Times 490 First Avenue South • St. Petersburg, FL 33701 • 727-893-8111 Contact the Times | Privacy Policy Standard of Accuracy | Terms, Conditions & Copyright