NTSB releases report on incident at BHM airport

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (WBRC) - The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has released their final report after the investigation of an incident that happened at Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport (BHM) in May involving the hard landing of a business jet during heavy rain.

Officials said the incident happened Wednesday afternoon, May 27 around 1:08 p.m.

According to the NTSB report, a business jet with two crew members and 12 passengers was approaching BHM at the end of transcontinental flight from Ireland.

The second-in-command reported air traffic control cleared the flight to land when they were about three miles away from the airport.

After they were cleared to land, the air traffic controller told the flight crew that heavy rain would be encountered throughout the landing approach at the airport.

The pilot-in-command described observing precipitation via weather radar and a heavy rain cell had been reported on the runway.

As the plane began to land, forward visibility was extremely reduced because of the heavy rain and the flight crew lost visual reference.

Shortly after touching down, the crew regained visual reference of the runway and realized they were drifting right of the runway’s centerline.

The airplane continued right and the right main landing gear left the runway surface into the grass.

Pilots worked to navigate the plane to the left, and the plane rotated about 70-degrees to the left before coming to rest on the runway, oriented nearly perpendicular to their approach path.

The flight crew applied power and were then able to taxi to park, doing so uneventfully.

No injuries were reported in the incident. However, the report said the aircraft, a Gulfstream G600, sustained substantial damage to the right wing during the incident.

The report included the following quote from the pilot-in-command:

“We didn’t like the looks of the radar return, however there were no indications of sheer and the two aircraft ahead of us reported no issues. We flew a stabilized [instrument landing system] approach all the way to touchdown, but the visibility through heavy rain, gusty winds and wet runway condition should have been anticipated.”

The probable cause of the accident was listed as the flight crew’s decision to continue the landing approach into adverse weather conditions, which resulted in a loss of visual reference and loss of airplane control during the landing.

You can review the report in its entirety below:

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