Do you remember the first time you trained under a hood?
Oh its possible if you lose concentration or your mind just freezes under pressure. It happened to me during training on a take off from the Oakland airport.
Instrument flying requires a constant scan of a few primary instruments including the attitude indicator. The pilot probably just lost it under the pressure of a missed approach in minimum IFR conditions. What happens is the pilot starts to disbelieve the instruments and believe his sensations instead, a fatal flaw.
Single pilot IFR is high pressure flying when the conditions are at minimums. Punching through a cloud at 1000 feet is no big deal but bringing the plane all the way to the missed approach point and still not seeing the runway....I don’t think it is for the faint of heart. And I think that some pilots find they don’t really have what it takes until it is too late.
Spatial-D, derived from physical cues sent by the inner-ear, can be a physically overwhelming experience.
Your body screams at you that you are at such-and-such an attitude and your body fights your mind. Your rational mind says one thing (trust the instruments) but your body fights back—hard.
It takes extreme will-power and discipline to trust your instruments and win the fight with your body. That is why an instrument license is issued. . .to certify those that are rated to fly under IMC conditions. Add bad weather and/or an indefinite horizon and other misleading visual cues and you are in for a world of hurt.
Experienced and inexperienced pilots suffer from spatial-d. Not all survive.
(Close your eyes, spin in a circle for a few turns and then open your eyes and try and walk a straight line. Same sort of thing you are dealing with.)