Unsecured Cargo

One of the things primary students learn early during their ground-school training-perhaps before they ever get into an airplane-is that the items loaded into it can weigh no more than a certain amount, and have to go in certain places. Overloading the aircraft, and/or placing heavy items far from its nominal center of gravity, is bad, theyre told. Somewhere along the way, it might also be explained that those items need to be secured. But the common way we load airplanes-especially those in which the passenger cabin and the cockpit are the same space-is to throw some soft-sided luggage in the baggage compartment, maybe throw some heavy things in the back seats or the floorboard behind the front seats, and light the fires. Little thought usually is given to whether those items should be secured, or how. Thats in sharp contrast to how we treat the passengers.

Key Takeaways:

• Pilots often neglect the critical importance of properly securing cargo in small aircraft, a practice that can have severe consequences despite early ground-school training on weight, balance, and securing items.
• A fatal accident involving a Piper Saratoga highlights this danger: unsecured and overloaded porcelain tiles shifted during a go-around attempt, causing the aircraft's center of gravity to exceed its aft limit, leading to an aerodynamic stall.
• The NTSB attributed the accident to the pilot's failure to secure cargo, inadequate preflight inspection, and exceeding the cargo compartment's weight limit, emphasizing that even seemingly minor shifts in unfastened items can be catastrophic.

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