B767-300 and 300 ER
Other / Unknown
Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural FAR; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Weight And Balance
General None Reported / Taken
Company Policy; Human Factors
This scenario is in reference to operating a live trip [with inaccurate weight and balance calculations]. I was informed of the event today. Apparently the cargo load forms for that route were incorrectly filled out (and therefore the aircraft was flown illegally) by the operations representative. I was also informed that the crew; consisting of myself; a relief First Officer; and the Captain did not notice the errors in the paperwork. My duties for both legs were in the right seat; with the captain in the left seat; and Relief Pilot in the observer's seat. My preflight duties include preflighting the flight deck; loading the route and winds into the FMS; and reading checklists. The pilot in the observers seat does the aircraft walk-around; gets appropriate manuals and does the weight and balance. It is not common practice to have all three pilots double check the math (or passenger and load forms) of the operations representative. We have to have faith in his ability to do his job correctly. This is not to mention that we generally receive this paperwork just minutes before scheduled pushback. The pilot doing weight and balance takes the zone total weights and unit load device weights and enters them into our operations weight and balance computer and there is a 'flag' if there is any discrepancy in 'legal' loading. We assume that the math to derive these zone total weights by the Operations Representative is correct; as that is information we do not enter into the computer. The event occurred because the load paperwork was filled out incorrectly by Mr. X; and not identified by the crew as incorrect. Since the math used to determine zone weights was incorrect; it was not flagged by our computer and therefore not noticed by the flight crew.
B767-300 First Officer is informed after the fact that the Weight and Balance calculations for a flight he flew were incorrect. The error occurred when the operations representative added up the various bin loads and passengers on board incorrectly then provided that incorrect information to the flight crew to preform Weight and Balance calculations.