A crj-200 flight crew accepted a night visual approach to roa while on downwind to the runway in con...

Narrative:

Descending into roa approach pointed out airport and said call in sight. We saw it slightly to our northwest and called it in sight. It was a dark night and we knew there were mountains; but they were hard to see. Approach cleared us for the visual approach to runway 24 [and to] contact tower. We were then approximately on a mid-field left downwind for 24. Kept it long and wide for the mountains; but then going through the valley we got a terrain GPWS warning. We kept the airplane on a high final and landed safely.we had misread the company policy prohibiting visual approaches until establish on part of a published approach. Very dark night made it even more difficult; too. We need better adherence with procedures at special airports; to be careful of complacency; and to completely read all special airport operational restrictions.

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: A CRJ-200 flight crew accepted a night visual approach to ROA while on downwind to the runway in contravention to company policy which restricts acceptance of visual clearances only after established on a published approach. An EGPWS terrain warning resulted; but was ignored.

Narrative: Descending into ROA Approach pointed out airport and said call in sight. We saw it slightly to our northwest and called it in sight. It was a dark night and we knew there were mountains; but they were hard to see. Approach cleared us for the visual approach to Runway 24 [and to] contact Tower. We were then approximately on a mid-field left downwind for 24. Kept it long and wide for the mountains; but then going through the valley we got a terrain GPWS warning. We kept the airplane on a high final and landed safely.We had misread the company policy prohibiting visual approaches until establish on part of a published approach. Very dark night made it even more difficult; too. We need better adherence with procedures at special airports; to be careful of complacency; and to completely read all special airport operational restrictions.

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	937305
Time
Date	201102
Local Time Of Day	1801-2400
Place
Locale Reference	ROA.Airport
State Reference	VA
Environment
Flight Conditions	VMC
Light	Night
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	Regional Jet 200 ER/LR (CRJ200)
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 121
Flight Phase	Final Approach
Route In Use	Visual Approach
Flight Plan	IFR
Person 1
Function	First Officer Pilot Not Flying
Qualification	Flight Crew Commercial
Events
Anomaly	Deviation - Procedural Published Material / Policy Inflight Event / Encounter CFTT / CFIT

A crj-200 flight crew accepted a night visual approach to roa while on downwind to the runway in contravention to company policy which restricts acceptance of visual clearances only after established on a published approach. An egpws terrain warning resulted; but was ignored.