[Pat Schmitz]

That is a very sad transcript....

The guy had plenty of altitude, but no vac for his instruments in IMC.

Since he was circling down from 7000 to the 1000 ft field elevation, with a 600' AGL ceiling, he was in the absolute worst possible situation - IMC, turning, no vac instruments... with a breakout at the very very last second. The probability of maintaining directional control under those conditions had to be almost impossible. A perfect case for a BRS Chute... or a second engine.

Had he had a GPS, (it did not say) he might have been able to maintain control by watching altitude, and maintaining a GPS based heading/decent..... but if not lined up nearly perfect at breakout - still facing a crash landing.....

If all else failed, in the absense of any other possible solution, except CERTAIN death, I have heard of pilots using a deliberate stall/spin, to keep the airplane over the airport until breakout, then quickly attempted to stop the spin, and land....although the success of that manuever is one of great controversy, and very, very risky.

Apparently, in the old old days, some pilots would use a diliberate stall/spin to descend through the clouds, break the spin upon cloud breakout and land... In theory, it would keep the plane from overspeeding, and coming apart, as well as provide a somewhat predictable recovery once ground was spotted... There were several articles about this published this past summer in the flying rags.... I think Flying and/or Plane&Pilot... Definitely worth the read.. I don't recall the typical altitude to recover from this maneuver, but it is certainly WAY more than 600' AGL... Probably more like 2500' AGL. If the airframe survives.

Anyone else have any thoughts on this situation??