A detailed investigation is going on regarding the helicopter crash that killed NBA star Kobe Bryant, his 13-year-old daughter Gianna and seven others on Sunday. Among those killed in the crash were John Altobelli, head coach of Southern California’s Orange Coast College baseball team. Also, his wife, Keri, and daughter, Alyssa, who played on the same basketball team as Bryant’s daughter; and Christina Mauser, a girls’ basketball coach at a Southern California elementary school. Terrible weather is being considered so far as one of the main reasons behind the crash, but investigators are looking into other areas as well.
National Transportation Safety Board member Jennifer Homendy in a press conference, said, “Radar data indicates the helicopter climbed to 2,300 feet and then began a left descending turn, “Last radar contact was around 9:45 a.m. and is consistent with the accident location.”
The pilot had climbed to avoid a cloud layer shortly before it crashed into the hillsides in Calabasas.
Before the crash Ara Zobayan, the pilot had requested flight following, which is assistance by the radar to help the pilot to avoid air traffic. Also, the recordings of the communications between the air traffic controller and the pilot pointed out the air traffic controller telling the pilot he is flying too low for flight following. A few minutes later, the pilot suggested they are climbing to avoid a cloud layer. After that air traffic controller asked what Ara planned to do, there was no reply. Later someone on the ground reported a crash.
Jennifer Homendy had visited the crash site on Monday morning and has described the scene “pretty devastating,” and debris was spread across 500-600-feet of the terrain. “A piece of the tail is down the hill on the left side of the hill,” she said. “The fuselage is over on the other side of that hill, and then the main rotor about 100 yards beyond that.” She said the “impact crater” on the hill was 1,085 ft above sea level.
Few experts even have suggested that the pilot might have gotten disoriented due to the fog. Still, Homendy has indicated that the investigators will look into every detail related to the case, including the pilot’s history to engines. “We’re not just focusing on the weather here, though. We look at man, machine and the environment, and the weather is just a small portion of that,” she said.
The investigation is facing a setback, though, as there was no black box in the helicopter as helicopters don’t require any. The National Transportation Safety Board investigators will spend around five days to collect evidence from the crash scene.
The helicopter crashed about 30 miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles. The Flightradar24 data suggests the helicopter was flying at a speed of 184 mph and descended at a rate of more than 4000 feet per minute and crashed scattering debris over an area the size of a football field.
Questions are being asked how the pilot got special clearance to fly in such weather. The pilot was flying under special visual flight rules, or SVFRs, an air traffic control authorization that allows an aircraft to proceed through controlled airspace at less than the basic VFR minimums of the 1,000-foot ceiling with three miles visibility. Pilots can request such clearance before or during the flight if the weather suddenly changes while waiting for the clearance the helicopter circled for 12 minutes.
The weather was so foggy that the Los Angeles police department and the county sheriff’s department had to ground their helicopters.
The same thing had happened to John F Kennedy Jr. when his aircraft crashed in 1999 near Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. People are also pointing out that sometimes people who fly important clients for a living are pressured to get their clients wherever they want to go even in bad weather.
Investigators will carry out thorough checks regarding the Pilot Ara Zobayan. Zobayan was an experienced pilot with over 8200 hours of flight time. He was worked for Island Express Helicopters. He earned his commercial license in 2007 and was also a certified flight instructor for helicopter pilots. Records also show that before the flight he was medically fit.
NBA start Kobe Bryant played for his entire 20-year career for the Lakers. He went on to win five NBA championships, made 18 All-Star teams. He was the 2008 NBA most valuable player, scored 81 points in 2006 against Toronto, the second-highest in the NBA history. Kobe Bryant even won the 2018 Best Animated Short Oscar for producing “Dear Basketball.”
