On January 4, 2007, at about 8:30 p.m. EST, a Cessna 182P with three aboard left Newport News, Virginia, for Columbia, South Carolina. Rain and fog were forecast for Columbia, and the pilot, a 7,200-hour ATP, had filed an IFR flight plan earlier in the evening. The right-seat passenger, himself an instrument-rated commercial pilot and flight instructor, had called a friend in Columbia shortly before taking off and had expressed concern about the predicted fog.
The forecast proved accurate. When the 182 approached Columbia at 11:15, both of the city’s airports were near or below minimums with intermittent rain, low overcasts and mist. Owens Downtown, the flight’s destination and home base, had a 100-foot overcast with visibility fluctuating between three-quarters and one-and-a-half miles; Columbia Metro reported 200 feet and half a mile.
