"a" wrote in message
...
My guess is he probably attempted too steep of a turn and
had no idea he was in any danger of spacial disorientation because he
didn't
recognize that he was in instrument conditions. Unfortunately it's a
common
mistake for low time pilots and lots of them kill themselves that way.

He was tracking right towards the airport, I'd assume on a/p. My guess
is he chose to hand fly and started his descent and lost it. There was
zero need for a turn at the place of the accident. A wings level
descent from 5500 feet to pattern altitude in 15 miles is what was
needed, so he needed to lose 4500 feet or so in 7 or 8 minutes. I
would rather go down slower, but less than 1000 fpm is not in itself
bad. Any turn other than course correction was not needed.

His aircraft was having intermittent problems with its autopilot. He may
have been preoccupied with it.

Personally I like to stay as high as I can, as long as I can. This would be
especially true over water. Making a 1000 fpm descent is preferable to
descending too soon and needing that extra altitude at some point.