I have just read the post, a student pilot recently at the airport I am currently at was on a solo circuit, the atc told him to hold downwind, yet not to orbit but to hold and hover. This is not atc procedure to ask an aircraft to hold and hover at 700ft. As the student pilot did so, and did not realise the situation he was putting himself in held the hover, pointed it into wind and then lost pedal authority in the little R22, spiraled twice while descending to 200ft agl before recovering positive airspeed with power.
Complete ignorance / lack of knowledge by atc with an instruction that is not standard to circuit traffic. This was the students 2nd solo, with the atc not understanding on the day of the near fatality that their instruction could have caused.
now I call the student lucky