36. How Do You Load a Cargo Plane?

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2013/05/how_do_you_load_a_cargo_plane_so_it_doesn_t_crash.html

This article was presented by Brian Palmer on Wednesday, may 1 in reference to the recent US cargo plane crash in Afghanistan. Palmer first briefly explained the accident that had occurred at the Bagram Air Base shortly after the take-off and led his introduction to the question, "How do you load a cargo plane?" Palmer summarizes the main procedures and cautions of loading cargo on a plane throughout the article, including the necessity of "positions, locks, and a load master." The load master is the person in charge of cargo placement who assures that all freight are accurately weighed, are positioned in the right places, and are locked and secured correctly to have the plane in proper balance. Although it is important for the plane to be balanced laterally, it must be especially concerned that the cargo does not shift the plane's center of gravity forward or backward. Palmer includes the explanation of the possibility of such accident by stating that the pilot has no way to recognize whether the plane's center of gravity is too far to the front or to the back until when the plane is already in the air and it is too late to do anything. Palmer provides an example of such an accident in 1997 when the boxes broke loose and caused the plane to fail immediately after takeoff, killing several people. In his concluding paragraph, Palmer adds brief explanations of the ways that commercial passenger jets are kept in balance. Commercial airplanes do not require such precise loading operation like the freighters, but the balance is taken care of by creating divisions in the belly or even considering the weight of each passengers in the case of a small plane.

Brian Palmer's article, "How Do You Load a Cargo Plane?" is developed through a formal and scholarly tone intended to inform the audience. Palmer's purpose of publishing the article is to provide clearer understanding of the probable cause of the horrific accident in Afghanistan and feed the people's curiosity. Without employment of extensive diction or professional level concepts, Palmer's audience consists of the average news readers, or those that are specifically looking for the answer to the question Palmer addresses in the article.