Description

Persons on board (POB) is the number of all people on board an aircraft. This includes the passengers and the crew.

The POB value is inserted in Item 19 (supplementary information) of the filed flight plan, preceded by "P/". Example: "P/123". If the number is not known at the time of filing, the abbreviation TBN (to be notified) is used. Example: "P/TBN".

The information about POB is vital when conducting search and rescue operations. It can obtained it from the flight plan or it can be provided by the pilot. The former method usually requires a special procedure as Item 19 is not available in all flight plan databases. Therefore, checklists for air traffic controllers often contain an item for asking the crew about POB when an emergency landing is expected (e.g. in case of fire, hydraulic problems, fuel problems, etc.).

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