There was a cold/stationary front right over the airport at the time of the accident. Lots of low clouds associated, with some smaller and several larger, strong convective cells popping nearby, mostly to the east, around Monroe. However, a broken line of broken, smaller, lighter showers had started showing up on radar, passing by the FAF right around the time of the apparent loss of control. Echo tops to the south of the airport were generally around 5-10,000’, with some to 20,000 a few miles farther south. Some of these were more elevated in nature than others.
A convective SIGMET was valid for that area and was renewed just after the accident time.
The closest TAF at KMLU, issued at 1140Z, called for the following (accident sequence was from 1441 to 1442Z):
FM211300 25006KT P6SM VCSH OVC15
FM211500 35003KT 4SM SHRA VCTS OVC015CB
Weather depiction charts showed the arrival of the front, the potential for low clouds and thunderstorms. The issue may have been the timing of the frontal passage, which is not always easy to predict.
With daylight breaking, combined with the arrival of a slow-moving front, there was definitely potential for increasingly poor, unpredictable weather. Not to say this is what caused the accident, but it’s a reminder that it’s easy to get lost in the weeds of specific observations and forecasts for a small area (especially TAFs and METARs) and try to squeeze in geographically and/or by timing. But we also potentially miss the bigger picture of what’s causing the weather and how that’s trending and ultimately affecting the area.
