As one expert stated, reflecting on the Kennedy crash, “You have to be well trained to disregard what your brain is saying. When our mind senses potential danger, especially mortal danger, and urgently commands, “bank right,” while instruments on a dashboard indicate we should, “bank left,” it is very difficult to trust the instruments. Learning to place more confidence in a plane’s instruments than one’s own intuitive senses, however, requires training. If a pilot enters into dark or cloudy conditions where his natural orientation senses become unreliable, he can “fly by the instruments.” Spatial Disorientation That’s why most planes are equipped with navigational instruments designed to inform pilots of the plane’s attitude, altitude, and groundspeed.
The danger of such disorientation is obvious. He no longer knows which way is up or down. His sensory perceptions become unreliable. Points of reference that normally guide his senses disappear. Spatial disorientation occurs when a pilot flies into darkness or weather conditions that prevent him from being able to see the horizon or the ground. All investigations into the cause of the crash point to a phenomenon called “spatial disorientation.”
Kennedy Jr’s single-engine Piper Saratoga crashed into the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard, killing John (38), his wife Carolyn (33), and Carolyn’s sister, Lauren (34). On July 16, 1999, twenty years ago today, John F.
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