︎graveyard spiral
n.— «I don’t remember ever hearing of a single crash due to an accidental, recoverable spin. Pilots get killed in graveyard spirals…but they aren’t spins, and the root cause is not the airplane.» —“Re: American Aviation!” by Ronald J. Wanttaja Usenet: rec.aviation Jan. 22, 1990. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
If you speak a second or third language, you may remember the first time you dreamed in that new tongue. But does this milestone mean you’re actually fluent? And a couple’s dispute over the word regret: Say you wish you’d been able...