Posted on 01/27/2020 8:02:45 AM PST by C19fan
The helicopter carrying Kobe Bryant, his daughter, Gianna, and seven others that crashed into a rugged hillside outside Los Angeles was flying in foggy conditions considered dangerous enough that local police agencies grounded their choppers.
Bryant's helicopter left Santa Ana in Orange County, south of Los Angeles, shortly after 9am, a time when conditions were not suitable for flying, according to the Los Angeles Police Department.
There was an overcast at 1,300 feet and visibility of about five miles. The pilot, who was named as Ara Zobayan was flying under visual flight rules (VFR), meaning that he was relying on his ability to see the terrain below him.
Around 9.20am, the helicopter circled for about 15 minutes just east of Interstate 5, near Glendale.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
FAA says they flew 185mph into the mountain.
The problem was the pilot, not the equipment.
Beat me to it...Has killed many a pilot who should have stayed on the ground that day...Buddy Holly comes to mind; no weather for flying...My first instructor pounded that into my brain...”Does you no good to get halfway to your destination really fast...”
Even if you are really, really rich, you should not have your private aircraft fly when conditions don't warrant it.
You can replay the flight on the flightradar website to see what altitude was reported as the flight proceeded. The start of the ADSB data is at 75 feet during take off. The hold in Glendale was apparently for traffic and was directed by ATC. At that point they were at about 700 feet altitude. The flight was at around 1200 feet before climbing to over 2000 feet shortly before the crash.
.I don’t know if I have seen this question asked. From what I understand the conditions were bad and that flight should not have happened and no doubt it will be put down to pilot error.
My question is this, is it possible Bryant is really responsible for the this crash? Did he overrule his pilot and tell him to fly anyway after being told the dangers by the pilot. It’s Bryant’s helicopter so he calls the shots.
Any thoughts???????????
looking more and more like the pilot simply got disoriented and flew straight into the mountain in the heavy fog...at the altitude and speed he was at, he had about 10-15 seconds to figure it out. Impact left 20 foot deep crater..debris field over 600 yards long...main rotor found 100 yards further past that. After 40 hours, only 3 victims recovered..ugh...at least it was quick...just a sad story.
It doesn’t play for me, I guess I have pay to see that, but just looking at the path to me it looks like he got lost. I read they were suppose to land at John Wayne airport? Yet after circling over Glendale he then heads North West way past John Wayne airport then heads west and crashes.
I agree. That is a picture of someone hitting full force.
It was, the NY Post today reported that he was lost and couldn’t see in the fog so he basically slammed into the mountain because he didn’t see it. That is absolutely crazy, because I wouldn’t even drive a car in that kind of fog never mind fly a helicopter of all things. And if he was caught in fog why didn’t he fly above it until he came to a clearing? I was looking at Google maps at the crash site. He was flying above a relatively flat area, then he headed west right into these mountains. To me that seems incredibly irresponsible to take a chance like that unless he became ill?
Why wasn’t he flying IFR?
I think he was, but look at this: This is really strange...They say he stopped responding to the tower, they tried contacting him 4 times and he wouldn’t respond, and then all of a sudden he dropped and crashed. Was this deliberate?
Wonder what the new cost was? Probably had special features for an Illinois governor. A good percentage of them lived in the Chicago area & commuted. It was difficult to move out to the boonies & live in the governor’s mansion in Springfield.
In addition to the bad weather, JFK Jr. was an over confident, low hours, pilot in a high performance aircraft. A very bad combination.
This is a 5 minute video clip of a witness to the crash.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28QYy8lrww8
Rotors would tear them apart.
Not really Cf. Curti Zefhir helicopter parachute
Air traffic controllers have no idea who is on board aircraft.
From what I learned, the place they were suppose to be going was very close to the crash site, a sports acadamy Kobe owned, and I assume that’s what the pilot was looking for but why would he take a chance flying so low if he didn’t know where he was? Unless his GPS was messed up? They said helicopters use something called Tracmap which is an extremely accurate GPS system, maybe that malfunctioned.
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