Regional Jet 200 ER/LR (CRJ200)
Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Other / Unknown
Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural FAR; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Weight And Balance; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy
General None Reported / Taken
Human Factors; Procedure
When we arrived ground personnel notified us that the valet bags were not on the airplane; the weight and balance showed 21 bags should have been loaded. Due to this we flew the whole flight with the airplane out of CG limits by the weight of 21 valet bags (420 LBS). We actually were at forward CG and had to load 500 LBS of ballast on the flight to be within CG using the numbers on the weight and balance. The ground crew failed to load the bags. This is something that can cause a catastrophic event. A little bit more weight missing and we could be uncontrollable. The threats here lay with the ground crew that claimed they loaded the bags but didn't. In this situation aircraft is out of CG and we are now flying in an unproven flight envelope. Since the crew is not loading the aircraft themselves we are depending on the ground crew to do there job correctly. Mistakes happen; so I would say they need to have ground personnel check on each other and have a set way to do this.
CRJ-200 Captain is informed upon arrival that the valet bags were not put aboard and the weight and balance is not accurate and the aircraft may have been out of CG limits.