Spatial disorientation

Spatial disorientation, spatial unawareness is the inability of a person to correctly determine his/her body position in space. This phenomenon refers especially to aircraft pilots and underwater divers, but also can be induced in normal conditions — chemically or physically (e.g. by blindfolding). In aviation, the term means the inability to correctly interpret aircraft attitude, altitude or airspeed, in relation to the Earth or point of reference, especially after a reference point (e.g., the horizon) has been lost. Spatial disorientation is a condition in which an aircraft pilot's perception of direction does not agree with reality. While it can be brought on by disturbances or disease within the vestibular system, it is more typically a temporary condition resulting from flight into poor weather conditions with low or no visibility. Under these conditions the pilot may be deprived of an external visual horizon, which is critical to maintaining a correct sense of up and down while flying.

A pilot who enters such conditions will quickly lose spatial orientation if there has been no training in flying with reference to instruments. Approximately 80% of the private pilots in the United States do not have an instrument rating, and therefore are prohibited from flying in conditions where instrument skills are required. Not all pilots abide by this rule and approximately 40% of the NTSB fatal general aviation accident reports list "continuation of flight into conditions for which the pilot was not qualified" as a cause.

During the abnormal acceleratory environment of flight, the vestibular and proprioceptive systems do not respond truthfully. Because of inertial forces created by acceleration of the aircraft along with centrifugal force caused by turning, the net gravitoinertial force sensed primarily by the otolith organs is not aligned with gravity, leading to perceptual misjudgment of the vertical. In addition, the inner ear contains rotational "accelerometers," known as the semicircular canals, which provide information to the lower brain on rotational accelerations in the pitch, roll and yaw axes. However, prolonged rotation (beyond 15–20 s) results in a cessation of semicircular output, and cessation of rotation thereafter can even result in the perception of motion in the opposite direction. Under ideal visual conditions the above illusions are unlikely to be perceived, but at night or in poor weather the visual inputs are no longer capable of overriding these illusory nonvisual sensations. In many cases, illusory visual inputs such as a sloping cloud deck can also lead to misjudgments of the vertical and of speed and distance or even combine with the nonvisual ones to produce an even more powerful illusion. The result of these various visual and nonvisual illusions is spatial disorientation. Various models have been developed to yield quantitative predictions of disorientation associated with known aircraft accelerations.

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