On Christmas night, 2006, it was foggy in Lawrenceville, Georgia. Briscoe Field was reporting half a mile visibility in fog, with the ceiling at 100 feet, when a Cessna 414A arrived from Florida on an instrument flight plan.
The 44-year-old commercial pilot had logged over 400 of his 632 hours in the airplane in which his life and those of his two passengers were shortly to end. His actual instrument time was 26.4 hours, his simulated instrument time 56.3. He had logged 142 hours at night. He was comparatively inexperienced, but current, qualified and legal. Despite the festive date he was not, as toxicology tests would later establish, under the influence of alcohol.
