Takeoff-weight Miss-take

www.theguardian.com/world/2021/apr/09/tui-plane-serious-incident-every-miss-on-board-child-weight-birmingham-majorca

TLDR: Apparently TUI had updated their reservation software during the first lockdown - with everything grounded - and it allocated everyone on the flight using 'Miss' as their title a child's weight at 35kg vs an adult weight of 69kg. Which meant 38 adults were rated as children and the pilot's take-off weight and thrust calculations were 1.2 tonnes light.

The UK uses 'Miss' as a female title for both adults and children (as well as both 'Ms' and 'Mrs' as alternate adult titles), while apparently the country the software change was offshored to only used 'Miss' for female children. Which just shows how careful you need to be both writing and reading specifications to be sure all assumptions are clear and you aren't running into some sort of international discontinuity.

At least it wasn't Metric vs Imperial this time! (Yes, that has happened).