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 crashed his Lancair ES into a northern Minnesota lake during a short, extremely dark night flight over an unlit wilderness area, leading to severe disorientation and vertigo.
Despite 400 hours of flight time, the pilot was not instrument-rated and was deemed unprepared for Instrument Meteorological Conditions (IMC), suggesting he misjudged the risks of flying in absolute darkness.
The accident highlights the profound disorientation that can occur in total darkness without visual references, leading to erratic flight and a fatal crash, even if technically 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.