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 fatally crashed his Lancair ES into a northern Minnesota lake during a dark, moonless night flight in a wilderness area, likely due to severe spatial disorientation caused by the complete absence of ground lights and visual cues.
The pilot had only 15 hours of instrument training and was not deemed ready for Instrument Meteorological Conditions (IMC), making him ill-prepared for the challenging environment despite technically VFR conditions at takeoff.
The accident underscores the extreme hazards of night flying in visually featureless or totally dark terrain, where the lack of an external horizon and ground lights can lead to profound disorientation even outside of clouds.

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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.