A320
Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Situational Awareness; Training / Qualification
Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Weight And Balance; Ground Event / Encounter Object
Aircraft Aircraft Damaged; Flight Crew Overcame Equipment Problem
Procedure; Human Factors
I was a deadheading crew member seated in the cabin. The flight was completed normally. The passengers began the deplaning process. As I approached the main cabin door to exit the aircraft; I felt the nose of the aircraft begin to lift into the air. I was standing in the forward galley with the flight attendants as the nose of the aircraft began to lift. The main cabin door contacted the top of the jet bridge overhang and stopped the nose up pitch motion in its current position. The pilots that had operated the flight had already exited the aircraft and I was the only remaining pilot on board. I immediately went up to the flight deck to evaluate the situation. My estimate is that we were approximately 10 degrees pitched nose up when the aircraft came to rest. Passengers were in the process of deplaning and approximately 100 passengers and 5 flight attendants were still on board. I went back into the forward galley told the flight attendants to sit down and buckle into a seat belt and then I made an announcement over the PA and told the passengers to please sit down in any available seat and fasten their seat belts. Once the passengers were seated; I returned to the flight deck to contact Operations; the on-call chief pilot duty phone; as well as get the airport fire department and EMTs out to the aircraft. I left the aircraft mostly in the same configuration as I found it except I started the APU. I went back to the forward galley to address the flight attendants on the situation and try to coordinate with the gate agents through the main cabin door which was open. I sat down in the flight attendant jumpseat and put on my seat belt to coordinate from there. At that time; the floor of the aircraft was approximately 4-5 feet above the level of the floor of the jet bridge. There were numerous gusts of wind that that were strong enough to feel the aircraft CG shifting back and forth. The aircraft felt like a teeter-totter as we balanced on the main landing gears. I made another announcement for all passengers to remain seated exactly where they were and to keep there seat belts fastened. Within a few minutes; the local fire department; airport PD and I believe EMTs arrived and began communicating with me in the jetway through the open main cabin door. The fire department informed me the nose of the aircraft was in fact 4-5 feet off the ground and that all the bags in the forward cargo had been removed and that bags still remained in the aft cargo. There was some discussion about moving passengers forward (only about 10-15 were in the front; while more than 70+ passengers were located beyond row 13). I informed them that I wasn't comfortable asking passengers to get up and remove their seat belts for fear that the aircraft would fall either forward or back. There was then discussion between myself and the group of airport PD; FD; [and] Ops about the slowly removing bags from the aft cargo to reduce the weight in the back. The option to remove bags was ultimately agreed upon. When back to the flight deck and buckled in to ensure that I was there should the aircraft start to roll or any other aircraft operation be necessary; and made another announcement to passengers to please stay seated with seat belts fastened and that we hoped to have the situation resolved shortly. Communications between myself and the Fire Department in the jetbridge were relayed by the flight attendant sitting in seat 1D. Within 1 minute of sitting down in the flight deck; the nose of the aircraft began to lower (at a slightly higher rate than a normal landing). The nose of the aircraft hit the ground and bounced slightly (my estimate would be we bounced 1 foot back into the air) and then finally came to rest and which time I applied brake pressure to ensure we didn't move (the parking brake was set). After the aircraft came to rest; 2 fire fighters boarded the aircraft and asked if we had any injuries. To my knowledge we had no injuries. Thefire fighters and I discussed leaving all passengers in the front of the aircraft seated while slowly deplaning from the back of the aircraft. After deplaning all passengers from the back of the aircraft; the remaining passengers seated in the front then deplaned. One flight attendant and I did final sweep of the aircraft to ensure that no one was still on board and then I secured the aircraft (other than the APU which remained running-which was good because the GPU had either fallen out or was pulled out) and was the last to leave the plane. I'm not entirely sure of the whether the aircraft was loaded or unloaded correctly since I was not operating the flight. My best guesstimate is that the aircraft was completely unloaded of bags in the front while more than 100 passengers and bags remained in the aft. The wind was very gusty and I'm not sure if that played a role in the event or not. Perhaps use of tail stands could become regular practice or to unload bags from the aft cargo first would be my suggestions.
Deadheading air carrier pilot reported the nose of the A320 lifted 4-5 feet off the ground at the gate during the unloading procedure when the forward bags were removed first.