Losing Orientation

A common night disorientation scenario is transiting from an area with many lights to empty countryside with few scattered lights (or none at all). I distinctly remember my first experience with night disorientation. I was a VFR-only pilot at the time and did not have a good instrument scan, nor much night experience, but thought I was proficient enough. I was flying from Boise to American Falls, Idaho, in a rented two-seat Alarus. The plane was painfully slow, so instead of flying over the highway, I hit the Direct To button on the GPS so I could fly the shortest path over the empty sagebrush back to the airport. Between the lack of lights and the moonless night, I strayed significantly off-course more than a few times. I knew my saving grace was the magenta line that I was able to keep pointed ahead.

Mike Hart

Sunday, January 27, 2019 at 12:00 AM ET

Verified

Key Takeaways:

Disorientation in flight, encompassing both spatial (physiological) and geographic (cognitive) types, often stems from a combination of physiological responses to a lack of visual cues and poor pilot choices, especially during night flying, VFR into IMC, or turbulence.
This disorientation is a significant safety hazard, frequently leading to loss of control, wrong airport landings, and for non-instrument-rated pilots, an average of only 178 seconds to lose control after entering IMC.
Effective mitigation relies on strong attitude instrument flying skills, a disciplined instrument scan, regular practice of unusual attitude recovery, and sound judgment to avoid conditions conducive to disorientation.

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Becoming disoriented in flight is one of the most terrifying experiences pilots can have. In extreme cases, it leads to loss of control, controlled flight into terrain or even an inflight breakup. Less extreme experiences lead to pilot deviation or, more optimally and after the afflicted pilot is safely back on the ground, the expense of pursuing an instrument rating.

In its curriculum for teaching student pilots, the FAA primarily focuses on the aeromedical causes of spatial disorientation—the vestibular-ocular system, somatogyral and somatogravic illusions, visual illusions and otolith organs. The FAA’s safety brochure on spatial disorientation covers the same material. Both of them help pilots understand how our inner ear and visual senses fail us when we lose visual references and are subjected to various disorienting movements or confusing sight pictures.