BE400 first officer reports landing on a closed runway at gnf after being informed by someone mannin...

Narrative:

Arriving at our destination airport; the winds were strong from 320 degrees at 13 KTS gusting to 18 KTS. We shot a GPS approach to runway 31. After getting a visual of the airport and canceling our IFR flight plan; we were about to land when we saw that the runway looked to be closed. We called unicom and asked if it was in fact closed and were told that runway 31 was closed but usable at pilots discretion. After doing a fly by to look at the runway; we chose to land on 31 due to the high winds. After landing; we realized that the runway was NOTAM'ed closed and we just missed that NOTAM during preflight. The airport authorities told us that the runway was NOTAM'ed closed because it was being resealed; but the workers were not working on it that day so it was usable at pilots discretion; because the authorities just didn't want to remove the NOTAM for a couple of days while workers were not present. They said that they were afraid that they would forget to publish the NOTAM again. This could have been avoided by a better check of notams during preflight. Once we discovered that the runway was actually closed; we should [have] landed on a different runway. If the winds were too strong to land on a different runway at gnf; we should have diverted to another airport with a more suitable runway.

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: BE400 First Officer reports landing on a closed runway at GNF after being informed by someone manning the Unicom frequency that the runway is usable at pilots discretion.

Narrative: Arriving at our destination airport; the winds were strong from 320 degrees at 13 KTS gusting to 18 KTS. We shot a GPS approach to Runway 31. After getting a visual of the airport and canceling our IFR flight plan; we were about to land when we saw that the runway looked to be closed. We called Unicom and asked if it was in fact closed and were told that Runway 31 was closed but usable at pilots discretion. After doing a fly by to look at the runway; we chose to land on 31 due to the high winds. After landing; we realized that the runway was NOTAM'ed closed and we just missed that NOTAM during preflight. The Airport Authorities told us that the runway was NOTAM'ed closed because it was being resealed; but the workers were not working on it that day so it was usable at pilots discretion; because the authorities just didn't want to remove the NOTAM for a couple of days while workers were not present. They said that they were afraid that they would forget to publish the NOTAM again. This could have been avoided by a better check of NOTAMs during preflight. Once we discovered that the runway was actually closed; we should [have] landed on a different runway. If the winds were too strong to land on a different runway at GNF; we should have diverted to another airport with a more suitable runway.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of April 2012 and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.

Attributes
ACN	921606
Time
Date	201011
Local Time Of Day	0601-1200
Place
Locale Reference	GNF.Airport
State Reference	MS
Environment
Flight Conditions	VMC
Light	Daylight
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	Beechjet 400
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 91
Flight Phase	Landing
Flight Plan	IFR
Person 1
Function	First Officer Pilot Not Flying
Qualification	Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP) Flight Crew Flight Instructor Flight Crew Multiengine Flight Crew Instrument
Experience	Flight Crew Last 90 Days 45 Flight Crew Total 5500 Flight Crew Type 2500
Events
Anomaly	Deviation - Procedural Published Material / Policy Ground Incursion Runway

BE400 first officer reports landing on a closed runway at gnf after being informed by someone manning the unicom frequency that the runway is usable at pilots discretion.