The instrument-rated pilot and two passengers departed from the remote airport in Ranger, Texas, on a dark, moonless night.
Two witnesses reported observing the Lancair LC40 500FG take off from the lighted runway and then turn right.
The airplane’s bank angle then slowly increased to about 90°, and it subsequently descended. The airplane hit terrain 0.4 mile from the departure end of the runway, resulting in three fatalities.
Several highly experienced, full-time pilots departed the same airport before and after the Lancair. These pilots described the flight conditions on departure as “extremely dark” and “like a black hole” with no ground lighting, moon, or stars in view to aid with visual orientation.
The pilot’s night flying currency was limited; his last night flight, flown with a flight instructor, occurred 11 months before the accident. He was not current to fly at night with passengers.
The majority of the pilot’s night flying experience (about 24 total hours) took place in a large metropolitan area with high levels of ground lighting, therefore his night and instrument flying experience (about 3 hours overall) was likely not sufficient to operate safely in the challenging dark night conditions that existed during the accident flight.
An iPad, which displayed mapping information, was likely positioned in front of the right seat passenger. This location may have contributed to the pilot initially overbanking to the right as he may have turned to look at the map just after takeoff.
Based on the dark night conditions and the lack of visual references at the time of the accident and the pilot’s low overall night and instrument flight time and his lack of recent night flight experience, it is likely that he became spatially disoriented, which led to his loss of airplane control and the subsequent descent into terrain.
The NTSB determined the probable cause as the pilot’s loss of airplane control shortly after takeoff as a result of spatial disorientation due to dark night conditions, the pilot’s low overall night and instrument flight time, and his lack of recent night flights.
NTSB Identification: CEN14FA437
This August 2014 accident report is provided by the National Transportation Safety Board. Published as an educational tool, it is intended to help pilots learn from the misfortunes of others.
A friend who owns a Lancair tells me that the aircraft is very unstable. While he has no problem with his C185 or other legacy aircraft (he’s a very experienced, very current pilot), he said loss of the Lancair autopilot under black hole or IMC is a true emergency.
Could be this accident resulted from a failure to use from a failure by the accident pilot to use his autopilot. At any rate, the accident pilot was very low time, had very little night experience – nearly all of which was over well lighted metro areas, and in any case was not current for night ops.
It’s not going to change until Instructors themselves know how to teach inadvertent IMC and the FAA requires proficiency.
Re: Many early model Cessna 150 and 172’s had as an emergency procedure published in their POH’s…Turn loose of the control wheel, with rudder maintain a standard rate turn to the desired heading by reference to the turn and bank instrument.
I have questioned over 150 Instructors and 5 Examiners flying these aircraft and none had ever heard of this! Who reads the POH of a small aircraft???
I recall an article by a biz jet jockey describing what he did for a living compared to what a beginning pilot does in a trainer. It was quite an excellent article, very informative. He elaborated the differences in detail but brought it back to the foundational basics every pilot builds their skill from.
One phrase struck me when he described the after take off sequence burning kerosene, ” gear up, flaps up, autopilot on ” .
Same thing at Cedar Key in Florida. Departure at night westbound over the water, pitch black. That airport has taken many pilots.
My instructor told me ALWAYS climb out on instruments at night.
This is very sad.
Out here in the west we have an airport that gets one of these crashes every couple of years… Jackpot, NV. Nice airport, but taking off to the South in the dark can result in spatial disorientation on a dark night. Something to be very aware of…