The helicopter pilot in the Kobe Bryant Crash flew into the clouds and got disorientated, resulting in the tragic deaths of all aboard. Spatial Disorientation kills people every year. But what is it? How do our bodies become spatially disoriented? DPE Joe Casey joins Dan (@TakingOffDan) and Christy (@PilotChristy) to talk about what causes Spatial Disorientation and more importantly, how to avoid it. We also hear from Suzy Patey, Mark Patey’s wife on a very scary Spatial Disorientation event that almost took her life and the lives of a couple of her children.
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Suzy and Mark Patey: https://www.youtube.com/user/801pilot
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00:00 Intro
00:49 What is Spatial Disorientation?
02:10 Suzy Patey Story
04:22 The Leans Somatogyral
04:45 Semicircular Canals
05:50 How the Cupula work
06:08 Cupula Demonstration
10:21 Coriolis Illusion
11:26 Bryan Turner (@JustPlaneSilly) demonstrates the Coriolis Illusion
13:09 Chair Demonstration
14:00 The Atlas 767 Crash, the Linear Movement, the Otolith Organs
15:34 Ricky Leonard Crash in Piper Meridian
18:00 Practicing in IMC, Instrument Training
19:30 What we can do to avoid SD
25:56 Closing Thoughts
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27 Comments
I feel the hillside was more to blame for Kobe’s death than spatial disorientation.
How did I just know it was going to be Bryan??
I don't know if the Vertigon is still brought to airshows or not, but if it is, every pilot should "fly " it. My logbook has the sticker they gave me. It says "Wow! I flew the Vertigon!". You'll never forget it.
Not many hours after getting my PPL I was flying my wife an kids from Minden, Louisiana to Hallettsville, Texas. I had worked all day so we left right at dusk. Somewhere south of Lufkin most of the ground references disappeared. I also noticed that the "stupid airplane" kept turning off course 🙂 I got on the gauges (not instrument rated but we did a lot of hood work during the PP training) , started tracking the VOR radial, and got back on track, no pun intended. It was much later, during instrument training, that I figured out what had happened.
During my instrument training, I think it was lesson 2 or 3 when we went real IMC (500' overcast). I asked the instructor to take the controls because I wanted to see what it looked like. I still remember him saying "There's nothing to see!" and I responded "I want to see what that looks like". It didn't last long, there was nothing to see :o)
I cannot imagine what Mark Patey was feeling…Very happy to see Joe Casey again.
Very informative, great episode
Exactly why I’ve always believed Night VFR shouldn’t be a thing. Don’t get me wrong it’s fine in places where you have a lot of terrestrial lighting, but where you don’t have a lot of lighting from the ground or a well lit night sky, you can have pitch black conditions with no discernible horizon. I’ve seen it myself flying in Connecticut. In my opinion an instrument rating should be required for pilots that want to fly at night. I’m not saying you should be on an IFR flight plan on every night flight, but you should at least have achieved the rating to legally fly at night. IMO.
If I was looking for an instructor, Joe would be my choice. Great personality, very well informed, and I'll bet a great instructor. He should expand his channel and share his vast knowledge. Very lucky to have him help you guys out. I'm a fan!!!
Joe has a great personality, very well informed, and what experience!!! Always a good time listening to him, Wish I lived in Texas!
I ate these brownies once, oh man talk about spatial disorientation!
You had me at "Joe Casey"
Your analysis please? https://mentourpilot.com/the-aircraft-lied-saa-airbus-a340-90-ton-miscalculation/
As for the explanation of what spatial disorientation is, it has to do with the lack, and/or complete loss of visual references. It happens when:
1- For the lack of visual references: when what you think you see, matches the false information sent by your "sensors", a.k.a your joints (kinesthetics sense) and your internal ear (vestibular system). For example: an oblique cloud layer that you would – wrongly – interpret as the horizon. Also, at night, when you can become confused whether the lights you see are the stars, or the cities (it happens faster than what you think).
2- For the loss of visual references: when your body sensors (kinesthetics and vestibular) are solely responsible for telling your brain what's up, and what's down. The way they work make it possible that your last known spatial position will drift over time, depending on your maneuvers.
Long story short: as soon as you lose visual references, and ideally before if you know it is coming, the only thing you must trust is YOUR INSTRUMENTS. Happy flying.
Joe Casey is amazon, he has great visual aides that help explain the concepts so well.
Sometimes we hear of the glass of water horizon check. I come from a construction family so I think of bringing a level. Either an 8" one or 24". This would confirm to me that we were or were not level. Just place that instrument on the dash of the plane. Or hold it up long enough to compare with the artificial horizon.
While I am not a pilot I did take some ground school years ago. Our instructor emphasized duplicate or redundant input or systems. When we hear that a jet motor came apart and destroyed some crucial system, I always listen for someone to speak of a secondary system to kick in and save the day. But in seveal years of YT channels this has been rare at best.
But for some things I feel we were given the answers: (some answers)
•The lady was spiraling. We were taught to keep an eye on the compass.
•The lady was descending. We were taught to keep an eye on the altemiter.
•Listen to your engine. Is it laboring? Or not working hard enough?
•And so on like that. The instructor had us comparing instruments, listening and believing instruments.
How do these things strike you? Because I hear nothing about these things on YouTube, to speak of.
love Joe. thanks
Great info! Thanks so much for sharing guys!
I learn so much every time Joe Casey does a video or a podcast, the guys is amazing.
Hey Dan and Christy, Great show. I'm a big fan of Joe, I for one would not be upset if he were to be come a regular member of the in the hangar crew. He always is so informative, knowledgeable and passionate about the topics he discusses on the show, I keep finding myself disappointed each time the episode is over. Keep up the good work and hurry up and re-book Joe!
On my instrument cross country with my instructor, we were in the soup going into Pensacola. The weather was 800' overcast and ATC was vectoring me for the ILS. He had some faster planes he was trying to get in before me, so he turned me about 6 times in a min during the decent. I got overwhelmed and spacial disorientation. If my instructor hadn't been with me I would have certainly killed myself that day.
Bryan and the kid laying on the ground holding the chair at 13:42 are the MVPs of this episode. That kid on the ground made me laugh so hard when I noticed him
How well do birds do if they get into inadvertent IMC?
Great session.
🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
Not true the atlas air FO was a substandard pilot documented by other airlines but not throughly investigated
20:57 Transfer the controls to somebody that is not spatial disorientated sounds fine but how would you know who is disorientated and who not?
Bloody fantastic video.
personally i think instrument ratings should apart of a private pilots initial license and imbedded into the written exam
by no means am i attempting to degrade the importance of regulations, weather, or calculations it is very important but.
the problem with the initial pilots written exam is its full of months of study that are better learned through flight training and experience and less filled with the information's that pertains to safety of flight and pilotage
for example. weight and balance, weather, regulations , sure i agree its a very important part of flight and safety but
learning to calculate weight, CG, and weather requirements is better suited during flight training, and just learning that it is required is good enough for the written portion. that block of usable exam space would be better suited for studying the effects and resolutions of spatial disorientations or common pilot errors.
learning calculations and weather is easer when it is applied in a real word scenario, your predictions are reviewed by your instructor and if within safe limits you get to experience your predictions in flight as to their accuracy and effect
Learning airspace regulations is better understood when plotting your flights during your training and reviewed by your instructor as real world applications are the key to understanding large amounts of information such a airspace
IMO the FAA written exam and flight tests are too focused on regulations and redundant information that overwhelm the student from the start yes this information is very important but it makes it difficult to retain the information needed for a safe flight and is often forgotten once the brain is overwhelmed with task saturation and pilotage , then when things go wrong you can barley remember what to do as your memory is overloaded with redundant information
the FAA needs to review its tactics on creating new pilots and change its methods to reflect more on actual safety as it pertains to pilotage , how to actually fly the aircraft, how to resolve common and historical errors and leave the calculations, airspace regulations, and redundant information to the instructor to teach through repetition dont get me wrong this stuff is very important but after all there's a reason that instructors must get a specific certificate to instruct and being able to teach that should be a requirement
you want the pilots memory to be filled with resolutions and the pilots muscle memory to react to changing conditions through repetitive training not confusion and guesses
my written course and test recommendations
1. Basic Power Plant operations
2. Basic Aerodynamics and Primary flight control operation
3. Flying via VFR rules
4. Avionics and Flight instruments
5. Flying via IFR Rules (as pertaining to instrument ratings)
6. Common, historical Errors, and resolutions for VFR ( extensive)
7. Common, Historical errors, and resolutions for IFR (extensive)
8. Emergency Procedures (extensive)
9. Emergency communications ( only emergency communications and extensive in that area)
10. Basic Regulations involving airspace (keep it brief and to the point the instructor can teach more in depth )
now let the rest be mandatorily taught by the instructor through real world flight training and understanding through repetition.
also get off the backs of aircraft manufactures so they can make modern safer aircraft at a affordable price to the average income of the united states its better to fill the skys with reliable, safer, technology advanced aircraft than fill the skys with junk from the 60's because thats all anyone can afford without becoming rich first