Cessna 210 — Marathon, FL

What happened

The pilot had planned a cross country instrument flight rules (IFR) flight but had not contacted air traffic control to receive an IFR clearance before departing. He was departing from a coastal airport during dark morning hours, prior to sunrise, and after takeoff made a right climbing turn. The airplane reached an altitude about 400 feet above the ground, about 90° through the turn, before descending in the turn and impacting the water. The airplane’s groundspeed continued to increase, from about 70 knots at liftoff, to 100 knots at the height of the right climbing turn, to 146 knots at the end of the data. Review of airport surveillance video depicted the airplane’s takeoff, initial climb, and turn toward an area of dark open water underneath a scattered cloud layer. Based on the dark night conditions and the lack of visual reference at the time of the accident, it is likely that the pilot became spatially disoriented, which led to the subsequent descent into water. Examination of the wreckage revealed a right-wing-low attitude at the time of the impact, which was consistent with the pilot maintaining the right turn seen in the surveillance video recordings. Examination of the airframe and engine revealed no evidence of mechanical malfunctions or abnormalities that would have precluded normal operation.

The pilot held an instrument rating, but no logbook information was available from which to determine his level of instrument currency or proficiency. According to medical certification files, the pilot had several eye disorders including chronic macular edema in his right eye and bilateral glaucoma; both conditions restrict visual fields. A year prior to the accident, the pilot had successfully completed a medical flight test and had been granted a statement of demonstration ability (SODA) by the Federal Aviation Administration for his right visual field defect. The medical flight test included, among other abilities, demonstrating the ability to judge distances and to recognize landmarks and the ability to read instrument panels quickly and correctly. The medical flight test is administered during daytime hours; in this accident, the pilot departed the airport under night visual conditions and then flew over the ocean which would have few visual cues. It is therefore unknown how well this pilot could respond under dark conditions. The challenge with a constricted visual field is not generally the speed to execute the visual scan, but the time to process the visual information.

Given the lack of information from no nighttime vision testing as part of his SODA and insufficient information on the pilot’s instrument flight capabilities, the investigation was unable to determine what role, if any, the pilot’s vision restrictions contributed to this accident.

An editorial "what led to it / how to avoid it" analysis for this accident is generated separately and will appear here.