B737-900 captain reported a dispute developed between airline procedures and us customs actions. Pas...

Narrative:

Taxiing in after landing. Landed just under max landing weight. We get an ACARS message about possible tail tip which means unload some cargo before deplaning any passengers. I have had this happen in the past and the jetway has not been brought to the aircraft. I make a PA informing passengers that there will be a slight delay deplaning due to the tail tip issue. We leave the seat belt sign on.this time I notice that the jetway was connected and the door opened. I got out of my seat to investigate and find some customs personnel on the aircraft escorting 3 passengers off the plane and the cargo still had not been offloaded. I asked the jetway driver/gate agent what was up and he said ops ordered him to open the door and allow customs officials to deplane the diplomats ignoring our tail tip issue. I contacted the ops official and he said the customs watch officer ordered it. Opening the door before the cargo is offloaded when there is a possible tail tip issue is against SOP. Who is responsible for the aircraft in this incident if we have a tail tip; the captain or customs?

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: B737-900 Captain reported a dispute developed between airline procedures and US Customs actions. Passengers were reportedly removed by Customs agents before weight and balance issues were resolved by the B737 flight crew and ground personnel.

Narrative: Taxiing in after landing. Landed just under max landing weight. We get an ACARS message about possible tail tip which means unload some cargo before deplaning any passengers. I have had this happen in the past and the jetway has not been brought to the aircraft. I make a PA informing passengers that there will be a slight delay deplaning due to the tail tip issue. We leave the seat belt sign on.This time I notice that the jetway was connected and the door opened. I got out of my seat to investigate and find some customs personnel on the aircraft escorting 3 passengers off the plane and the cargo still had not been offloaded. I asked the jetway driver/gate agent what was up and he said ops ordered him to open the door and allow customs officials to deplane the diplomats ignoring our tail tip issue. I contacted the ops official and he said the customs watch officer ordered it. Opening the door before the cargo is offloaded when there is a possible tail tip issue is against SOP. Who is responsible for the aircraft in this incident if we have a tail tip; the Captain or Customs?

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.

Attributes
ACN	1397812
Time
Date	201610
Local Time Of Day	1201-1800
Place
Locale Reference	ZZZ.Airport
State Reference	US
Environment
Flight Conditions	VMC
Light	Daylight
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	B737-900
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 121
Flight Phase	Parked
Flight Plan	IFR
Person 1
Function	Captain Pilot Not Flying
Qualification	Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Experience	Flight Crew Last 90 Days 150 Flight Crew Type 5449
Events
Anomaly	Deviation - Procedural Published Material / Policy Deviation - Procedural Weight And Balance Flight Deck / Cabin / Aircraft Event Other / Unknown

B737-900 captain reported a dispute developed between airline procedures and us customs actions. Passengers were reportedly removed by customs agents before weight and balance issues were resolved by the B737 flight crew and ground personnel.