Regional Jet 200 ER/LR (CRJ200)
Flight Crew Commercial
Confusion; Distraction; Training / Qualification; Troubleshooting
Aircraft Equipment Problem Less Severe; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Weight And Balance
Flight Crew Became Reoriented
Aircraft; Manuals
Aircraft swap and we met crew who had just flown the aircraft we were receiving. They informed us of a possible problem with the load planning calculations on weight and balance on their previous flights in this aircraft. Therefore; my Captain and I thoroughly went through all of the preset numbers in the FMS such as Basic Operating Weight; etc. and confirmed all to be correct. Additionally we did a hand written weight and balance as a precaution. We determined the weights to be different by a few hundred pounds so we therefore used the more conservative and accurate hand written form for our flight. Once at cruise and en route decided to try to determine where the error was coming from. We discovered that the error was in the Zero Fuel Weight but could not exactly figure where. We suspected that the load planning numbers were wrong for the passenger weights somewhere and as it turns out we hear that was the case; specifically section C passenger weights.
A CRJ200 flight crew determined the FMS Zero Fuel Weight calculations were incorrect by several hundred pounds; data determining passenger weights was apparently incorrect.