Drop-down menus on online forms: They could be the death of us.
On Thursday, journalist and programmer Dan Nguyen pointed out a darkly comic incident report connected to a flight over the summer. During a pandemic hiatus, an unnamed airline operator upgraded the system that helps ensure an accurate load sheet—the document tabulating the estimated weight of the passengers, crew, cargo, etc. The problem: The new system included titles and assumed that anyone listed as “Miss” must be a child. The incident report for the July 21 flight from Birmingham, England, to Mallorca, Spain, says:
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“The system allocated them a child’s standard weight of 35 kg as opposed to the correct female standard weight of 69 kg. Consequently, with 38 females checked in incorrectly and misidentified as children, the G-TAWG takeoff mass from the load sheet was 1,244 kg below the actual mass of the aircraft.”