Originally Posted by
gulliBell
I'm in the camp that the pilot did not know he was turning, or descending. I think his plan was to climb straight wings level but he was overwhelmed when suddenly finding himself IMC, alone up front, and not having configured the aircraft appropriately for what he wanted to do. Others here suspect he made a decision to turn but he lost it.
I can't speak for this guy, but for myself, I kinda froze up. I was staring at the artificial horizon trying to turn slightly left, while watching the guage get bluer and bluer, yet unable to get the signal from my eyes to my hand to push the stick forward. It was only the sound if the low rpm horn that unfroze me just in time to recover from the vertical decent that also brought me out of the clouds and the sheer luck that I had enough altitude to dump the collective and dive the nose to recover.