If you follow the Wikipedia link, the accident had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with overweight passengers. Rather, it has everything to do with an utterly incompetent, airline and all maintenance functions associated with the aircraft.
NTSB News Release
National Transportation Safety Board Office of Safety Recommendations and Communications
Loss of Pitch Control Caused Fatal Airliner Crash in Charlotte, North Carolina Last Year
2/26/2004
The National Transportation Safety Board determined today that the probable cause of an airliner crash in Charlotte, North Carolina, last year was the airplane's loss of pitch control during takeoff. The loss of pitch control was the result of incorrect rigging of the elevator control system compounded by the airplane's center of gravity, which was substantially aft of the certified aft limit.
"This accident shows how important it is for everyone involved in the safety chain to do their jobs properly, " said NTSB Chairman Ellen Engleman-Conners. "It is imperative that the recommendations we've issued today be implemented so that tragedies like this not be repeated."
On January 8, 2003, Air Midwest (doing business as US Airways Express) flight 5481, a Raytheon (Beechcraft) 1900D, N233YV, crashed shortly after takeoff from runway 18R at Charlotte-Douglas International Airport. Two crewmembers and 19 passengers aboard the airplane were killed. One person on the ground received minor injuries, and the airplane was destroyed by impact forces and a postcrash fire.
Contributing to the cause of the accident, the Board found, were Air Midwest's and the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) lack of oversight of the work being performed at Air Midwest's maintenance facility in Huntington, West Virginia. Board investigators found that the accident airplane entered a maintenance check with an elevator control system that was rigged to achieve full elevator travel in the downward direction. However, the airplane's elevator control system was incorrectly rigged during maintenance, and the incorrect rigging restricted the airplane's downward elevator travel to about one-half of the travel specified by the airplane manufacturer.
Air Midwest contracted with Raytheon Aerospace to provide quality assurance inspectors, among other maintenance personnel, for the Huntington maintenance station. Raytheon Aerospace contracted with Structural Modification and Repair Technicians to supply the m
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