Pilot in Kobe Bryant Crash Became Disoriented in Clouds, N.T.S.B. Finds

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: New York Times

The pilot in the helicopter crash that killed Kobe Bryant and seven other passengers last year flew into clouds in violation of federal rules and likely grew disoriented while flying through the fog in Southern California, investigators said on Tuesday. The chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board said that the pilot, Ara Zobayan, was operating under rules that prohibited him from flying into the clouds, but that he had nonetheless continued. Mr. Zobayan indicated that he was trying to climb above the clouds while he was actually rapidly falling, a sign that he was disoriented, investigators said.

The close relationship between Mr. Bryant and Mr. Zobayan, who had flown the basketball star and his children many times, may have made the pilot want to complete the flight despite the hazardous conditions, investigators said. “This weather did not sneak up on the pilot,” Bill English, the lead investigator on the case, told board members. He said the pilot had crashed just minutes away from an airport where he could have landed. Once disoriented, the pilot seemingly did not reference his instruments, did not understand them or did not trust them, investigators said.

The N.T.S.B. is expected to release more findings at the close of its meeting on the causes of the crash that killed all nine people on board, as they were on their way to a youth basketball tournament. The five members of the N.T.S.B. board convened at 9:30 a.m. Eastern for the live-streamed meeting, and asked questions of the investigators who had spent the last year examining the crash, including inspecting the destroyed helicopter, interviewing members of the charter company and considering what could stop future, deadly accidents.

Mr. Bryant, the retired star basketball player on the Los Angeles Lakers, was killed on Jan. 26, 2020, when the helicopter slammed into a fog-shrouded hill near Calabasas, Calif., erupting in flames. Everyone on board was killed, including the pilot, Mr. Bryant’s daughter Gianna, two teenagers who were on Gianna’s basketball team, some of the children’s parents and an assistant coach.

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/09/us/kobe-helicopter-crash-investigation.html

---

I think that was a foregone conclusion a year ago but they had to obviously get all the details to make that finding.

It's still so sad.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

1. WaPo link:

Last edited Tue Feb 9, 2021, 01:20 PM - Edit history (1)

Transportation

Helicopter pilot flying Kobe Bryant didn’t follow his training when flying into disorienting clouds, federal investigators say

By Ian Duncan
Feb. 9, 2021 at 11:29 a.m. EST

The pilot carrying NBA star Kobe Bryant, his teenage daughter and six other people didn’t follow his training after flying into clouds and likely became disoriented, federal safety investigators said Tuesday.

Pilot Ara Zobayan should have steadied the helicopter, climbed slowly and declared an emergency to get help from air traffic controllers, National Transportation Safety Board investigators said Tuesday. But the investigation into the crash found that he didn’t take those steps.

Once he was in the clouds, the investigators said Zobayan likely became disoriented as he lost visual references, thinking he was climbing when, in fact, the helicopter was plunging toward a hillside.

Federal safety investigators were meeting Tuesday to determine the likely reason a helicopter carrying Bryant plunged into a Los Angeles County hillside last year.

{snip}

Ian Duncan
Ian Duncan is a reporter covering federal transportation agencies and the politics of transportation. He previously worked at the Baltimore Sun for seven years, covering city hall, the military and criminal justice. He was part of the Sun's team covering Freddie Gray's death in 2015 and then-Mayor Catherine Pugh's Healthy Holly books scandal. Follow https://twitter.com/iduncan

[BumRushDaShow]

2. Yeah WaPo was slow to do their breaking news

and NYT beat them to the punch!!

Good morning (just before it becomes "afternoon" ).