B777 Undifferentiated or Other Model
Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP); Flight Crew Flight Engineer
Flight Crew Last 90 Days 240; Flight Crew Total 23000; Flight Crew Type 7500
Confusion; Situational Awareness
Deviation - Speed All Types; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy
Flight Crew Became Reoriented
Environment - Non Weather Related; Human Factors; Procedure
It was a clear night and the co-pilot was flying by hand using the flight directors and started accelerating out of 10;000 FT from 250 to 300 KTS and I was doing SOP's when I felt G's and looked up to see the pitch on the attitude indicator going through 20 degrees and the speed dropping through 260 KTS. I yelled; 'Your pitch is too high; I got it.' I pushed over without negative G and stabilized the climb. The copilot said he was looking outside and must have gotten a false horizon since we took off to the north over the water at night. He was now fine and he continued to fly the next two legs flawlessly. He has always been in the top 25% of the pilots I have flown with and is very sharp; but couldn't remember anything like this happening before. He has always espoused that the younger pilots don't do enough hand flying to keep up proficiency; but in this case it was the opposite of not relying on flight director and instruments. I thought I should report this since it shows how it can affect even the highest skill level late in an airline career. What will never be known is when he would have discovered his visual disorientation and if he could have recovered. I remember an Airbus 320 accident similar due to the Captains disorientation at night visual over the water after takeoff that occurred a few years ago in the Middle East.
B777 Captain took control of the aircraft when the First Officer exceeded 20 degrees pitch with decreasing airspeed on a visual; hand-flown departure. First Officer attributed the pitch increase to the perception of a false horizon over water at night.