Australian low-cost carrier Jetstar is now under probe when a flight from Melbourne was nose-heavy at take-off because passengers were not seated properly.
The Perth-bound flight needed to pull back almost completely on the controls to raise it after taking off on October 29.
The nose-heavy incident is one of the two 'serious incidents' of the airline according to Australia air safety watchdogs, The Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) and the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB).
In a separate incident, an Airbus A320 flight from Brisbane to Melbourne was 1328kg heavier than the weight used to calculate take-off and landing date by taking on board 16 more passengers than advised.
The Civil Aviation Safety Authority is looking into the incidents considering the root causes of the errors, what actions are made by Jetstar after the incidents, and the airline's compliance with regulations.
"CASA will take all appropriate actions to ensure Jetstar maintains robust and appropriate systems and processes to ensure passenger loading mistakes do not recur," a spokesman said.
The airline reports that since the incidents they have endorced additional measure to make sure that flights have been loaded correctly and that aircraft weight and balance is properly accounted for.
They also added that both flights involving the incidents have both landed safely and that the overloading incidents were reported to the authorities.
"We've had no flights operate with this type of error since we introduced these measures," a Jetstar spokesman said.
He said Jetstar was working closely with investigators.
In 2011, Tiger Airways was grounded by CASA for busting the minimum safe altitude over houses as well as ignoring repeated safety warning from the regulator.
The risks Tiger posed to air safety in 2011 is less than those evidenced in the incidents involving Jetstar now. Invalidating critical performance calculations on a flight by flight basis is a very serious matter.
The full ATSB investigation is not expected to be complete until October 2016.
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
