The National Transportation Safety Board has issued a Safety Alert for General Aviation pilots, called “Minding Weight, Maintaining Balance: Improper or Unperformed Calculations Can Be Fatal.”
NTSB officials note that between 2008 and 2016, the probable causes of 136 GA accidents were related to pilots improperly conducting preflight performance calculations for weight and balance or not conducting them at all. One-third of these accidents resulted in pilot and/or passenger deaths, NTSB officials added.
Along with the release of the Safety Alert, the NTSB also released a short video: