On December 11, 1991, N25BR, a Beech Aircraft Corporation Be 400 Beechjet, owned and operated by Bruno's Inc., a chain of supermarkets and related stores based in Birmingham, Alabama, landed at the Richard B. Russell Airport near Rome, Georgia, after an uneventful flight from Birmingham. The airplane, operating under 14 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) Part 91, General Operating and Flight Rules, was transporting two flight crewmembers and seven passengers. The passengers, executives of Bruno's and another company, were on an annual Christmas tour of Bruno's facilities. After the Rome stop, the passengers were to be flown to Huntsville, Alabama, where they were to be driven to 11 Bruno's facilities located between Huntsville and Birmingham.
After the passengers disembarked at Rome, the pilot remained near the airplane The captain filed an instrument flight rules (IFR) flight plan with a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Flight Service Station for the approximately 80 nautical mile flight to Huntsville and the return to Birmingham. Because the airplane had been fully fueled at Birmingham, no additional fuel was added at Rome.
The cockpit voice recorder (CVR) transcript indicated that the airplane's engines were started at 0930. Shortly thereafter, the captain told the first officer that given the prevailing weather conditions, "We could run out under the edge but there's no edge anymore." The flightcrew taxied the airplane and commenced takeoff on runway 1 at 0937 under visual flight rules (VFR). Comments by the pilots revealed that the first officer was the pilot flying. No reference was made by either pilot to a checklist or a pretakeoff and departure briefing. In addition, no reference, was made by either pilot to a sectional chart used for navigation under VFR.
At the time of takeoff, the weather, was measured by the automated weather observation system at the airport, was reported as 1,000 feet overcast, visibility 10 miles, and altimeter 30.33 inches of Hg. The level of the cloud ceiling obscured the tops of nearby terrain that exceeded 1,600feet mean sea level (msl) elevation.
At 0937:13, the captain contacted the Atlanta Air Route Traffic Control Center (Atlanta Center) informing them that the airplane had just departed Rome, was flying under VFR, and was "looking for a clearance over to Huntsville." Atlanta Center gave the crew a transponder identification "squawk" code and to!d them to maintain VFR because "we have traffic four and five right now southeast of Rome. [We will] have something for you later." At 0939:14, Atlanta Center asked the crew to state their altitude. The response was "We're at thirteen hundred VFR, just southwest of Rome Airport." At 0939:39, the captain advised the first officer, "We're gonna have to get away from that mountain down there pretty soon." He then told the first officer, at 0939:52, "You're getting close. You're gonna [have to] go to the right." The first officer responded that he could not "see over there." The captain then stated that if they maintained their present course, they could run into an airplane on approach to Rome. The captain also pointed out that there was a mountain in on direction and antenna in another that would be hidden by the fog.
The first officer then asked the captain if he should "just punch up," [fly through the cloud layer to reach visual conditions, without air traffic control (ATC) clearance]. Since the airplane had arrived at Rome about an hour before this flight, the pilots would have been aware of the approximate altitude of the tops of the clouds. The tops were about 2,000 feet msl, according to a pilot who had landed in Rome about the time of the accident. The captain told the first officer not to fly through the cloud layer because of their proxitnity to the airplanes that were on approach to Rome.
At 0940:07, the captain directed the first officer to fly "back to the right." At this point, the CVR transcript indicates that the pilots recognized that thr. airplane was close to obscured terrain. The CVR stopped recording at 0940:55. At 0941:21, Atlanta Center attempted to contact the airplane but that attempt and all subsequent attempts were unsuccessful. At 1033, a person notified the airport that he had seen a plume of smoke near the 1,701-foot msl summit of nearby Mt. Lavender. Shortly thereafter, airport employees informed rescuers of this information. Rescuers located the wreckage of the airplane and found that the airplane was destroyed and all nine passengers and crew had been killed.
The accident was nonsurvivable because of the high impact forces. Post mortem examinations of the passengers and crew showed that all were killed by blunt force trauma associated with the accident.
We determined that the probable cause of this accident was the captain's decision to initiate visual flight into the area of known mountainous terrain and low ceilings and the failure of the flightcrew to maintain awareness of their proximity to the terrain.
As a result of its investigation of this accident, we made recommendations to the Federal Aviation Administration and to the National Business Aircraft Association.
