Writing in D Magazine on the 30th anniversary of Vaughan’s death, attorney and former Army helicopter pilot Colin P. Cahoon described his experience figuring out exactly what went wrong that night. To do so, he and fellow helicopter pilot and expert witness Joe Kettles went to the scene of the accident and recreated the flight using the same kind of helicopter from the accident. What they found was that the lights of the golf course created a temporary blind spot after flying above them and before the lights of Chicago appeared off in the distance to provide orientation.

This blind spot would not have been a problem for a pilot approved to fly using the helicopter’s array of instruments, but, unfortunately for Vaughan and the three other passengers, Jeff Brown was not. He was only qualified to fly in conditions that allowed clear visibility out of the windows. He was approved for the flight due to the clear weather conditions, but he really needed those instruments to navigate that short blind spot. Colin and Joe missed the slope by just a few feet when they recreated the flight. They determined that neither the pilot nor the passengers knew what was coming. Unfortunately, the world will never know what would have become of a talent like Stevie Ray Vaughan had that helicopter made it to Chicago that night.