Originally Posted by
rotorspeed
Lonewolf - you may well be right in that the crew were in too much of a hurry (panic?) to get some fwd speed going and put the nose down too much, and then got disoriented. I suspect they could have been VMC on top (of the fog) at 150ft to make the transitioning job much easier, but even so a 10 deg pitch down is all that it should take - if you've got the power to climb well vertically there's no rush to generate airpeed - and if there is the chance of descending and disorientation with bigger attitude changes are much higher.
Well, I didn't say "in a hurry" nor "in a panic" but I was trying to account for why the nose was so low.
For night IMC, I'd call that an unusual attitude at the very least ...
Disorientation is my best guess at this point.