Space is always a precious commodity.
Kennedy from his plane could find no landmarks, nor even the horizon through the fading light and haze. He was in an opaque void in space where there was no up or down, right or left. I can understand how he become disoriented and crashed.
Astronauts must undergo intense training to keep from becoming violently ill when they experience the weightlessness of outer space. There, the vestibular sense cannot find the gravity to establish an up or a down, and spatial relations yield to chaos bringing sensations of sickness.