death spiral

Noun

death spiral (plural death spirals)

1. The downward, corkscrew-motion of a disabled aircraft which is unrecoverably headed for a crash.
   • The only way to account for it is a structural breakup in flight, a stall, a spin, a death spiral as we call it.1999 July 20, Mark Tran, “Did Kennedy's plane plunge in a 'death spiral'?”, in The Guardian, →ISSN
   • “We call this getting yourself in a square corner, when you run out of ideas and experience at the same time,” said Mr. Barr, a fighter pilot in the Vietnam War. “[…] Even for a good pilot, that could produce a death spiral.”1999 July 21, Mike Allen, Matthew L. Wald, “Maneuver by Kennedy's Plane Suggests He Was Disoriented”, in The New York Times, →ISSN

   Synonyms:

   graveyard spiral

2. (pairs figure skating) A manoeuvre in which a male skater spins in place while holding one hand of his female skating partner as she circles around him with one skate on the ice and one leg extended outward parallel to the ice surface, all the while slowly lowering herself until her back almost touches the ice surface.
   • There are four types of death spirals, named for the edge on which the lady is skating—forward outside, forward inside, back outside, or back inside.2002, Carole Shulman, The Complete Book of Figure Skating, →ISBN, page 194
3. (broadly, figuratively) The situation or course of action of one who is on a path toward some sort of inevitable catastrophic failure; a negative feedback loop.
   • But what followed for Lozano, his grieving family claims, was a death spiral into infantilism and madness.1992 April 13, Anastasia Toufexis, Hannah Bloch, “Did His Doctor Love Him to Death?”, in Time, archived from the original on 21 Sep 2011
   • The markets are in meltdown, intensifying the downward pirouette of what the international financier George Soros has called "Greece's death spiral".2010 April 28, Malcolm Brabrant, “Greece's ‘death spiral’”, in BBC News, retrieved 14 Sep 2011
4. Synonym of ant mill (“a phenomenon where a group of army ants, separated from the main foraging party, lose the pheromone track and begin to follow one another, forming a continuously rotating circle and eventually dying of exhaustion.”).

   Synonyms:

   ant mill