Kobe Bryant's doomed helicopter circled for 15 minutes over Burbank waiting for air traffic control clearance in dangerously poor visibility with the 'pilot relying on his eyesight rather than instruments to fly' [tr]

UK Daily Mail ^ | January 27, 2020 | Valerie Edwards

[basalt]

he panicked trying to get out of the fog and suddenly turned south...ATC even warned him he was way too low for the area...

[sasquatch]

184mph and descending at a rate of more than 4,000 feet per minute

Over max airspeed and dropping fast. Load shift??

[gridlock]

I wonder if some of the passengers applied pressure...

One of the common contributing factors is a desire to get to the destination, which causes bad decisions.

Unfortunately, that sort of thing happens all the time. If that happened here, it would not be unique to this case.

[1Old Pro]

Poor visibility is a problem for small craft,

[C19fan]

I wonder what the fatality rate is for helicopters compared to passenger jets and driving.

[New Perspective]

Using a helicopter as a school bus because you don't like to sit in traffic. Kobe is to blame for these deaths.

No, that is not the case.

[gridlock]

What I read was the pilot was under the cloud layer, following surface roads, but he asked to go “up top”, over the layer. This would have involved flying in the clouds, with restricted visibility.

I wonder if the top of this hill was above the bottom of the clouds, which means the pilot could have flown into it while in the cloud layer. Controlled Flight Into Terrain (CFIT).

Of course, it is all speculation at this point.

[Trump Girl Kit Cat]

I live in the area and the fog was HORRIBLE I was going to run some errands BUT couldn’t see two feet in front of me so waited for it to burn off!! They had NO BUSINESS flying in those conditions, you can land a chopper damn near ANYWHERE he should have landed that bird outside of the of the foggy area and WAITED KOBE could have phoned into the game regarding conditions this was so SENSELESS this fog around here burns off in an hour or so!!! Starting the game on time was NOT worth all of these lives!!!! I have been on the freeway when this kind of fog has rolled in AND I have pulled over and just sat on the side of the freeway and waited also PRAYING someone did not hit me while sitting there!!!!

[DownInFlames]

JJ was not flying in fog. He lost orientalists in VFR conditions after sunset. He was not IFR qualified.

[bunkerhill7]

Why can’t helicopters have two topside parachutes for controlled descent? Are we really this stupoid?

[Texan Tory]

Plane or helicopter, unless you’re trying to land, altitude is always your friend, the more the better.

[bunkerhill7]

Can’t cross a bridge

[DivineMomentsOfTruth]

Kobe Bryant's helicopter pilot was given clearance to fly under foggy conditions considered dangerous enough that local police agencies grounded their choppers.

Were they afraid to tell a celebrity's aircraft they didn't have permission to fly?

[Sans-Culotte]

Never been in a helicopter, but it seems to me, visual. ..would he just as important as instruments. ?

Not in zero visibility, such as in a fog. Even with instruments, an aircraft could easily fly straight into a hill if he doesn't know it is there. They simply should not have flown in such weather.

[Texas resident]

Celebrity deaths usually come in threes.

Kobe is 1.

Any bets on who will be #2 and #3?

[gcparent]

Oh God I remember the Marshall football team crash.

[Beowulf9]

Oh yeah. I see he flew over the water and had no spacial recognition, ‘fell to spatial disorientation’ is how Wikipedia puts it. Over the water at night the horizon is lost, he had no land lights to make a distinction. He went that way to take the shortest route that night.

Wasn’t the best idea he ever had.

[gcparent]

Wasn’t Epstein number 1??????

[TexasGator]

He was ‘IFR’ ... I Follow Road.

[gcparent]

But Kobes pilot was qualified.