Flying Into Total Darkness, Inside the Cow

The airplane disappears behind trees, reappears, turns, seems to aim straight for the startled stargazers on the shore.

Peter Garrison

Tuesday, February 14, 2023 at 05:08 PM ET

Verified

[Credit: Adobe Stock]

Key Takeaways:

A pilot with limited instrument flight training crashed his aircraft into a lake at night due to severe disorientation, just four minutes after takeoff.
The accident occurred in total darkness over a wilderness area completely devoid of ground lights, making visual orientation impossible even in VFR conditions.
The pilot's flight instructor had previously stated he was not ready for instrument meteorological conditions (IMC) flight.
The NTSB concluded the accident was caused by the pilot's "improper decision to attempt flight into instrument meteorological conditions," likely underestimating the disorientation risk of total darkness.

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An hour before midnight. The stillness of a northern Minnesota lake. Ripples on pebbles exposed in the water, reboantic loons. Darkness. Starlight.

Then suddenly, close by, the incongruous snarl of an airplane engine. Red and green lights race into view, swooping and plunging. The airplane disappears behind trees, reappears, turns, seems to aim straight for the startled stargazers on the shore. It veers away, zooms upward. Its lights become momentarily hazy and diffuse. The airplane again turns, dives, disappears behind trees. Then a dreadful sound, part boom, part thud, for which there is no name. And then silence.