Kobe Bryant Killed In Helicopter Crash

[Bailey Guns]

Regardless of what you think of KB, this is pretty cool:

https://twitter.com/heisTactic/statu...98836519383040

[Irving]

What if you like Kobe, but hate art and nice gestures?

[MrPrena]

The helicopter pilot's name was very familiar that I open the box of my middle school year book.

His last name was extremely similar but not same as friend I had in middle school.

[Bailey Guns]

What if you like Kobe, but hate art and nice gestures?

Then you're probably a pain in the ass that just can't be pleased.

[Irving]

Then you're probably a pain in the ass that just can't be pleased.

[Gman]

Helicopter in Kobe Bryant Crash Wasn’t Legal to Fly in Poor Visibility

LOS ANGELES — When the helicopter carrying the basketball legend Kobe Bryant crashed into a fogbound mountainside on Sunday, killing all nine people onboard, the pilot who was struggling to avoid the clouds did not have the legal authority to navigate with his instruments because the aircraft owner did not have the necessary federal certification, according to three sources familiar with the charter helicopter company’s operations.

Island Express Helicopters, which owned the Sikorsky S-76B, had a Federal Aviation Administration operating certification that limited its pilots to flying under what are known as visual flight rules, or V.F.R., with at least three miles of visibility and a cloud ceiling no lower than 1,000 feet above the ground. The company did not have certification for its pilots to fly with instruments, said Kurt Deetz, a pilot and former safety manager at the company.

The helicopter had sophisticated instruments onboard that the F.A.A. has approved for instrument flight, and the pilot, Ara Zobayan, was certified to fly by them. But because of limitations on how the company is approved by the F.A.A. to operate when carrying passengers for hire, he was required to fly only in conditions of sufficient visibility to navigate visually.

The limitations on Island Express’s operations are not unusual. Another operator at Van Nuys Airport, where the company is based, said none of the charter operators there have gone to the trouble and expense of winning certification for instrument flight, in part because it is normally so simple to navigate at low altitude in Southern California, with its easy-to-follow freeways and sunny weather.

But the new details about Island Express’s F.A.A. certification shed light on the question of why the pilot did not file an instrument flight plan that would have allowed him to climb well above the fog-shrouded hills and head to Camarillo Airport, not far from the basketball tournament where Mr. Bryant and his party were headed.

[Duman]

It keeps coming back to pilot error.

[Gman]

If there's no mechanical answer, that's where the rubber meets the road.

[iego]

From what I hear on the forums I monitor, they were coming in at an angle, if not inverted, which contradicts a straight on CFIT (controlled flight into terrain.)

Anyway, a fun forum to monitor when there are plane crashes...

www.pprune.com

(professional pilots rumour network)

-John

[Gman]

The final radar flight profile with a climb and then a sharp descent into the hillside lead experts to believe that the pilot had become disoriented in the fog.

Found a source that speaks to it: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...tions-n1123911

Alexander, who is also a helicopter pilot, said investigators will coordinate with air traffic control to review communication logs and the flight path of the helicopter, as well as catalog the wreckage and examine the helicopter's engine, rotors, control system and other instruments."

This is the most challenging situation for a helicopter pilot when you have these marginal conditions that are changing rapidly as you go along your flight path," Alexander added. "You have to make some quick decisions, and the workload while flying grows, which can lead to disorientation."

The Federal Aviation Administration says spatial disorientation occurs in flight when a pilot becomes confused and is uncertain where the aircraft's position is in relation to the ground. Reduced visibility heightens the feeling, although an aircraft's instruments are supposed to help pilots reorient themselves.

Spatial disorientation was to blame for the 1999 single-engine plane crash that killed John F. Kennedy Jr., who was piloting the aircraft, his wife, Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, and her sister Lauren Bessette, according to the NTSB.

The helicopter that was carrying Bryant and eight other people had circled over Glendale, just north of Los Angeles, several times about 14 minutes after takeoff, according to publicly available flight records. Before the crash, the pilot began to climb into the clouds, then took a sharp turn before slamming into the ground. The data shows that the aircraft descended at a rate of more than 4,000 feet per minute.