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Comment by metalon | Hacker News Reader

In 1991, Israel evacuated 14325 Ethiopian Jews in 36 hours using 35 aircraft, with up to 1122 passengers on a plane [1]. It's such an impressive feat, those must have been some of the best pilots, to be able to fly such an overcrowded plane (even though they stripped the seats from the planes it was probably still overloaded)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Solomon

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Not to knock the accomplishment but to be fair, the passengers were really light (confirmed according to article).

This comment sent me on a journey to find obesity data on Ethiopia and I found this ranked list that tied back to the CIA factbook as source and places them next to last (currently): http://www.indexmundi.com/g/r.aspx?c=et&v=2228

Yeah, people are about the density of water but even an isle full of people isn't enough to be too meaningful to an airliner. The only times it may be a problem would be a short runway with a full fuel load at altitude. Airliner are typically flown well within it's performance limits. No airline would allow a flight plan that's close to the maximum performance of the aircraft since it would be a recipe for disaster in addition to hard on equipment.

Keeping the cargo secure and the wrench that extra passengers throws into emergency procedures is the real issue here.

I've heard that Boeing 747 airplanes have enough lift to fly properly (if not land properly) with their fuselages full of water. They are in service as fuel tankers.

Still, it's a bad idea to prang an airplane with a few hundred people in the aisles, so pilot skill is important.

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