Source: nbaa.org., New Editor, First Published Jan/Feb Issue
The rare, good thing to come out of aircraft accidents is that they can lead to recommendations to prevent future accidents.
A fatal helicopter crash in 2020 attributed to spatial disorientation has prompted the FAA to recommend that pilots operating under Part 91, 91K and Part 135 receive training that helps them recognize and avoid conditions where spatial disorientation can occur.
According to the recently released FAA Information for Operators (InFO) 26003, the training will be done using scenario-based exercises in a combination of ground school, simulator application and inflight instruction.
Unusual attitudes and recovery are taught early in primary flight training. It often involves the pilot applicant closing their eyes while their instructor rolls the airplane into a 30-degree bank or initiates nose-up or nose-down pitch, then having the pilot applicant open their eyes, note the horizon and recover to level flight.
This same procedure is part of instrument training while the student is wearing a view-limiting device. After recognizing the unusual attitude, they recover.
What Is Spatial Disorientation?
If a pilot does not recognize they are in a nose-high or nose-low situation, they are likely experiencing spatial disorientation – a condition where there is a conflict between visual references and the body’s sensory system, such as the inner ear. Without visual references, such as a horizon, it is easy to become confused about which way is up.
Without situational awareness, the pilot may try to “correct” a perceived issue and do the opposite of what is required – for example, “correcting” a nose-high attitude by pushing the nose down when the aircraft was in a steep dive. However, the more complex and sophisticated the aircraft being flown, the more difficult it is to recognize the approach of spatial disorientation.
“Unfortunately, there are very few signs of spatial disorientation,” said Thomas Zeidlik, director of aerospace physiology at the University of North Dakota. “According to the FAA, 80% of all aircraft accidents involve some sort of spatial disorientation, and the majority of those are unrecognized disorientation. The pilot is flying along thinking everything is fine until suddenly the ground, or a hill comes out of the mist.”
Awareness Is Key
At UND, students have access to state-of-the-art full-motion simulators where they can experience spatial disorientation in a controlled environment. Scenarios culled from actual accidents – like the California accident that killed basketball legend Kobe Bryant, his daughter and seven others in 2020 – are used in the training. Awareness of the situations that can lead to spatial disorientation is key, Zeidlik said.
“We constantly drive home the phrase ‘recognize and recover,’” Zeidlik added, noting that even when students know something is coming, they can still end up in a situation where they fight hard to recover but are unsuccessful.
“The focus of the training is to get to the point that you can recognize spatial disorientation early enough to take prompt and correct action before the situation becomes unrecoverable,” he said. “This is done by learning when disorientation is likely to occur and being ready for it. The worst thing a pilot can do is assume it will never happen to them.”
Trust the Instruments
NBAA Safety Committee member Norman Dequier, director of flight operations at Aviation Performance Solutions, noted that APS has been providing the type of training referenced in the FAA InFO for many years, emphasizing the basic mantra of “trust the instruments,” which has been drilled into pilots since primary training.
“When a pilot becomes overloaded in a spatial disorientation event, the ability to ‘trust the instruments’ becomes far more difficult, as pilots may be interpreting and relying on instrument indications they have never previously experienced in flight,” Dequier said. “This increases the likelihood of reverting to instinct and sensory input rather than instrument data.
“Notably, approximately 90% of loss-of-control inflight events occur while operating on instruments,” added Dequier. “If pilots are to be adequately prepared for this reality, they must be exposed to upset recognition and recovery while flying on instruments – not solely in visual conditions.”
Instrument-based upset recovery training is essential, Dequier said, both to build competence in interpreting unfamiliar instrument presentations and to develop the confidence required to act decisively when visual cues are absent or misleading. That includes training pilots to rapidly diagnose the situation and execute a predefined recovery sequence to return the aircraft to a stabilized condition.
“While simulation is an essential component, a blended approach using both simulator and in-aircraft training is markedly more effective,” Dequier said. “Inflight training exposes pilots to the sensory effects of load, pitch and bank excursions under instrument conditions, while simulators allow safe exposure to class-specific scenarios that cannot be practiced airborne, such as IMC, night or proximity to terrain.”
As with all flight training, the more pilots practice a scenario, the better they become at addressing it in the real world.
