Recent news articles about the tragic aircraft wreck leading to the demise of the woman and her son after taking off from the Augusta airport and crashing into the woods around Gardiner caused me to think about her final reports to the control center.

She told the center that her instrument was giving her incorrect attitude readings.

When I first read this I thought the word was altitude, not attitude.

I later recalled public news around the time of World War II where it was mentioned that many pilots who could not see the ground because of weather conditions experienced what was then called vertigo.

They thought that they were flying with the wings parallel to the earth, while the instrument said they were flying at an angle to the ground.

This instrument is designed to show the horizon of the plane with respect to the earth. Unfortunately, some did not believe the instrument and hence got into a spiral that led to a crash in some cases.

Considering the bad weather in which she choose to fly, it seems to me that she possibly became disoriented, not seeing the ground and thought that her instrument was faulty.

If the pilot had believed what her instrument said, she might have been able to avoid the tragedy.

Bob Hard

Hallowell