Witnesses described the weather conditions at Birmingham (England) Airport the afternoon of Nov. 19, 2010, as extremely unusual. For hours, sunshine and blue skies prevailed at the airport, with southerly winds holding a fog bank at bay to the north of the field. When the winds suddenly shifted to the north, however, the fog moved with startling rapidity over the airport.
During this time, the flight crew of a Cessna Citation 501 was conducting the instrument landing system (ILS) approach to Runway 15. Weather reports and their own observations at the beginning of the approach likely had led the pilots to expect visual conditions all the way to touchdown, according to the report by the U.K. Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB).
However, the fog bank moved in the same direction and enveloped the light jet as it neared the published decision height (DH). The commander, the pilot monitoring, likely became distracted by the sudden and unexpected loss of visual references, and he…
