When you are flying into a hillside at over a hundred miles per hour it appears as though you are descending at that speed...............
And first indication you are about to hit the hill is when your pitot-tube out front begins to crinkle. . .(what. . .too soon?)
Never thought of that
But was he losing altitude
He crashed at a little over 1000 feet
Some of those Santa Monica hills are 3100 foot
You are correct he flew RIGHT INTO the side of the hill at over 100 miles an hour and it far lower than 30ft from clearing the top of the hill!! This pilot had no business flying in these conditions he was probably getting pressure that they HAD TO get there on time!!
The helicopter wasn’t visible on radar at the time of the crash so I don’t see how anyone really knows what speed it was going when it hit.
It sounds like people have been extrapolating based on what speed the copter could do versus what it was doing. People in Calabasas said it sounded like it had been hovering just prior to crashing. Hard to believe it was going 100+ mph in heavy fog and cloud cover.
The pilot had asked for radar tracking at the time that he had requested to fly Special VFR. That was when he was circling at Burbank, before he headed into the hills north of there.
The controller twice radioed the pilot that he was flying too low for radar to see him. The pilot didn’t acknowledge these messages.
He had popped up to 2500 ft before the crash, then descended at 2000 ft/min which is around 23 mph, while banking left. If you hit something immovable at 23 mph it may well be a high-energy crash, but 23 mph doesn’t sound like uncontrolled high speed if you think you are in clear air.
IMO this will end up being declared a CFIT crash. Controlled Flight Into Terrain. They couldn’t see the hills because of the heavy fog.