C150 student and instructor reported becoming disoriented and entering an unusual attitude in IMC co...

Attributes
ACN	1580815
Time
Date	201809
Local Time Of Day	1201-1800
Place
Locale Reference	ZZZ.TRACON
State Reference	US
Environment
Flight Conditions	IMC
Light	Daylight
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	Cessna 150
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 91
Flight Phase	Final Approach
Route In Use	Vectors
Flight Plan	IFR
Person 1
Function	Instructor Pilot Not Flying
Qualification	Flight Crew Multiengine Flight Crew Instrument Flight Crew Commercial Flight Crew Flight Instructor
Experience	Flight Crew Last 90 Days 150 Flight Crew Total 4500 Flight Crew Type 200
Person 2
Function	Pilot Flying
Qualification	Flight Crew Private Flight Crew Instrument
Events
Anomaly	Deviation - Altitude Excursion From Assigned Altitude Deviation - Procedural Clearance Deviation - Procedural Published Material / Policy Deviation - Track / Heading All Types

Narrative:

While flying in IMC with a student; my student became spatially disoriented. She was being vectored to a left heading of 040 to set up for the ILS xx at ZZZ. I watched her turn past her heading. I told her to turn back. She continued to the left. I was starting to question if her heading was really that off or if we were experiencing a vacuum failure. She said your flight controls. I took over but was already getting disoriented when I took the controls and struggled to regain control of the aircraft. My student became afraid we could stall; although we were not slow. She pushed the controls forward. We lost about 1;500 feet in a turn before regaining control of the aircraft. I feel that my student became spatially disoriented while I fell behind what was happening due to my questioning of the instruments. We lost altitude due to the unusual attitude. She and I are both current instrument rated pilots. She passed a check ride [a few months ago]. I passed a multi-commercial check ride [a few months ago]. We have both flown approaches since then. Neither of us had been in an unusual attitude in actual conditions before. We did unusual attitudes on a simulator the next day. We will both do it in the plane as soon as weather and schedule permits.

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: C150 student and instructor reported becoming disoriented and entering an unusual attitude in IMC conditions during practice instrument approach.

Narrative: While flying in IMC with a student; my student became spatially disoriented. She was being vectored to a left heading of 040 to set up for the ILS XX at ZZZ. I watched her turn past her heading. I told her to turn back. She continued to the left. I was starting to question if her heading was really that off or if we were experiencing a vacuum failure. She said your flight controls. I took over but was already getting disoriented when I took the controls and struggled to regain control of the aircraft. My student became afraid we could stall; although we were not slow. She pushed the controls forward. We lost about 1;500 feet in a turn before regaining control of the aircraft. I feel that my student became spatially disoriented while I fell behind what was happening due to my questioning of the instruments. We lost altitude due to the unusual attitude. She and I are both current instrument rated pilots. She passed a check ride [a few months ago]. I passed a multi-commercial check ride [a few months ago]. We have both flown approaches since then. Neither of us had been in an unusual attitude in actual conditions before. We did unusual attitudes on a simulator the next day. We will both do it in the plane as soon as weather and schedule permits.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.