An aviation rulemaking committee (ARC) that includes five representatives from the regional airline industry has submitted the final draft of a proposal to the FAA to revise the nine-year-old guidance for weight-and-balance procedures. Provoked by the January 2003 crash of an Air Midwest Beech 1900D in Charlotte, the March 27 recommendations would essentially rewrite Advisory Circular 120.27, the guidance most of the industry has followed since 1995 and an undeniable contributor to the crash that took the lives of 21 people.
Soon after Air Midwest Flight 5481 pitched up and rolled into a maintenance hangar on takeoff at Charlotte International Airport, the FAA ordered all 24 Part 121 regional airlines flying airplanes designed to carry between 10 and 19 passengers to collect weight samples over a three-day period. Another 10 airlines conducted much more elaborate appraisals of their own route structures, while industry commissioned at least another five weight surveys. The results almost uniformly showed that both passenger and baggage weights have grown well beyond the assumptions used until last year. As a result, the FAA issued a series of bulletins that in effect raised assumed passenger weight with carry-on baggage by 10 pounds and checked baggage by another five pounds.
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