Quote:
Originally Posted by DeepPurple
Looking at his route, the 101 that he was suppose to be following will take him right to Camarillo Airport. Why he would stray away from his ground landmark in such a hilly environment. On the tapes I can hear them restrict him to 2500 feet or below, it doesn't make sense that he would stray off course in such an environment unless he had total spatial disorientation. He basically was in IFR weather and lost ground contact, sort of like John Kennedy Jr. flying VFR at night in clear weather but over water. They can't tell what's up from down and the inner ear plays tricks. You would think a commercial pilot even in a helicopter would be instrument rated. If that is the case, they would of cleared them to 4 or 5,000 feet and put them on a heading and most likely would of been above the fog at that altitude anyway.
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I think it's a totally differnt ball game in IFR; so going from VFR ( his plan) to IFR (unplanned) in an instant (or in a very short amount of time) yikes. I'm sure he was instrument rated but this scenario probably happened so fast it didn't matter. But, I'm not a pilot...so, that's my WAG. probably went from flying VFR, 'cool, no problem' to "crap...I can't see anything and I don't know where I'm at" and that's when things/problems started cascading into bigger ones.
what a bummer of an event.