Wider?es Flyveselskap flight 744 was a domestic flight from Trondheim to Namsos and R?rvik in Norway. The DHC-6 Twin Otter departed Trondheim at 18:37 with two pilots and 17 passengers on board. The captain was Pilot Flying. The plane climbed to an altitude of 5000 ft and at 18:53 the flight contacted Namsos AFIS to obtain weather information. The flight was approaching the Namsos NDB from the south and reported “Namsos beacon outbound” at 19:07. A teardrop pattern was flown in order to align with the approach track for runway 26. The AFIS operator then gave a new update on the weather and said: “744, a heavy rainstorm, but the visibility seems to be good”. At 19:10:30 the plane approached the center line of the approach and the copilot said “Localizer alive”. At 19:14:01 the copilot said that they were at 2100 ft with 1100 ft as the next altitude. The descent was continued. The Namsos NDB was passed at 19:15:13. At that point the aircraft should have been at 2100 feet, but it had already descended below that altitude. At 19:16:48 the plane hit a ridge about 6 km from the airport and crashed. Significant findings (translated from Norwegian): The Commission has considered the following findings as particularly important as these factors had a direct or indirect effect on the incident. a) The circumstances of this aviation accident coincided with a “Controlled Flight Into Terrain”. The investigation has shown that the aircraft could be operated normally and was apparently under the control of the crew during the approach; b) The company had failed to implement a standardized concept of aircraft operation that the pilots fully respected and lived by; c) The approach briefing was not not fully implemented in accordance with the rules. There were deficiencies in: – “Call outs” during the approach – Descent rate (ft/min) during “FAF inbound” – Timing “outbound” from the IAF and the time from FAF to MAPt; d) The crew did not execute the “base turn” at the scheduled time, with the consequence that the plane ended up about 14 NM from the airport; e) The Pilot Flying ended the approach with reference to aircraft instruments and continued on a visual approach in the dark without visual reference to the underlying terrain. During this part of the approach the aircraft’s position was not positively checked using any available navigational aids; f) Both crew members had in all likelihood most of the attention out of the cockpit at the airport after the Pilot Not Flying announced that he had it in sight; g) The crew was never aware of how close they were the underlying terrain; h) The last part of the descent from about 500 ft indicated altitude to 392 ft can be caused by inattention to the fact that the plane may have been a little out of trim after the descent; i) Crew Cooperation during the approach was not in accordance with with the CRM concept and seems to have ceased completely after the Pilot Not Flying called “field in sight”; j) Before the accident the company had not succeeded well enough with the introduction of standardization and internal control/quality assurance. This was essentially because the management had not placed enough emphasis on awareness and motivate employees; k) The self-control system described in the airline operations manual and the parts of the quality system, was not incorporated in the organization and served as poor safety governing elements; l) Neither the Norwegian CAA nor the company had defined what visual reference to terrain is, what sufficient visual references are and what the references must be in relation to a moving aircraft.