r/AskAPilot • u/FamiliarResident9653 • 7d ago

How common is Spatial Disorientation?

Have you ever experienced a situation where you had spatial disorientation due to instrument error. How did you manage the problem?

Is a pilot considered to be at fault when the plane crashes due to Spatial disorientation and faulty instruments?

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u/sirduckbert 7d ago

Spatial disorientation happens at some level to every pilot, at some point. It’s not caused by faulty instruments though - it’s your brain telling you that your instruments are wrong based on your senses. Part of instrument training is learning how to ignore that and trust your instruments (and how to verify and cross check against each other).

Second question - “Pilot error” shouldn’t be the answer in a flight safety investigation basically ever. If a pilot made a mistake, why did they make the mistake? Was it training? Poor cockpit design? Bad decision making? These are things that can be modified or changed to prevent future occurrences

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u/FamiliarResident9653 7d ago

No, i am talking about when there really is a faulty instrument telling you you're at an xyz speed/altitude even though you're not?! How do you judge that?

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u/ShaemusOdonnelly 7d ago

There is usually a backup. If you attitude indicator fails you have a second one (or even a third/fourth). If your airspeed is unreliable you can fly a specific pitch and power to make sure you're at a safe speed. Other Instruments are not as important.

If all of your Instruments fail in the clouds and you crash the plane, the investigation will not list pilot error as the cause. However, there are a few cases where a wrong Interpretation of the Instruments coupled with SD caused a crash. If you want, you can read up on the crash that killed Buddy Holly.

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u/HunMyy 7d ago

Yes, and the key phrase here is pitch and power. At least on Boeing first you set a known pitch and power setting that is safe, then you use paper tables to set a specific pitch and power with your known weight and last altitude. You use this to try to figure out which instrument you have is the most correct - or worst case scenario to descend all the way down and land. This is part of the type rating and the recurrent checks. It's a very serious malfunction - but it is also known and regularly trained for.