Incident Overview
A Mitsubishi MU-300 operating as an on-demand passenger charter flight overran runway 30 at an airport after landing on a snow and ice contaminated surface. The aircraft sustained substantial damage. The captain, who also served as the company's chief pilot and check airman, was the pilot flying; the first officer was the pilot monitoring.
Flight and Weather Conditions
Instrument meteorological conditions (IMC) prevailed at the time of the accident. Area weather reporting stations had reported freezing rain and snow for several hours prior. The captain did not obtain the destination airport's weather observation until the flight was approximately 30 nautical miles from the airport.
Approach and Landing
The flight was vectored for an instrument landing system (ILS) approach to runway 30, which is 5,401 feet long and 100 feet wide with grooved asphalt. According to the company's training manual, the intermediate approach speed for the MU-300 is 140 knots indicated airspeed (KIAS), and the final approach speed is Vref, which the crew reported as 106 KIAS. During the approach, the tower controller offered the option to circle to land or continue straight in. The controller advised that winds were from 050 to 070 degrees at 10 knots gusting to 20 knots, and that runway braking action was reported as fair to poor by a snow plow. Radar data showed that the airplane had a ground speed in excess of 200 knots between the final approach fix and the runway threshold, and there was a full-scale localizer deviation 5.5 nautical miles from the localizer antenna.
Crew Actions and Company Policies
The company did not have stabilized approach criteria that specified when a missed approach or go-around should be executed. The captain stated he was unaware that runway 30 had a 0.7 percent downslope; the company's airport directory page did not indicate a slope, although the publisher's valid page at the time of the accident showed a 0.7 percent slope. Runway slope is used in the determination of landing performance for transport category aircraft such as the MU-300. The airplane operating manual stated that landing performance on ice or snow covered runways had not been determined.
Additional Factors
The aircraft was equipped with a cockpit voice recorder (CVR) that had a remote cockpit erasure control; readout of the CVR indicated a repetitive thumping noise consistent with manual erasure. No notices to airmen (NOTAMs) pertaining to runway conditions were issued by the airport prior to the accident.