Yes, he was IFR rated and the aircraft was IFR, but he was flying low with his head out the window and head on a swivel… single pilot helicopter… low, he had his hand on the collective and the cyclic. No time or extra hands to set up the instruments.
Doesn’t matter if you have 100,000 hours on instruments in that aircraft. The decision to turn instead of go straight and climb, killed him. Spatial disorientation comes on very fast. If you remember getting drunk as a kid and puking… yea, that’s the feeling. Imagine trying to fly a helicopter like that.
I was real good at finding crashes when I flew SAR for the CAP, because I studied what pilots did before they crashed so much, I knew where to find the wreckage.