Kobe Bryant killed in helicopter crash

To me the totality of the situation is what's tragic. You have these young families accepting the largess of another parent and coach who happens to be well off. They crash into a mountain and die in a fireball. That's pretty dang rough.

To make it worse, today we find out that TMZ was the first to surmise this was Kobe's ride. They reported so before the families were notified and the families found out through the press reports. The LASD claims they asked TMZ to wait.
 
Stonewall said:
Pilot error if these reports are true. I have never been in such a hurry that I would fly under non-visual conditions unless it was an extreme emergency. Maybe the fog appeared unexpectedly but I imagine it is common around the coast and mountains in that area. I agree 161 knots in the fog seems a bit reckless.
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I don't imagine there is a CVR in a private bird, but I wonder how much Kobe pushed the pilot to continue under what were obviously bad conditions for flying. As I have mentioned, I get on a pilots website a lot and many times it's mentioned during an accident when a pilot wipes out a private owned/leased bird on landing/takeoff in bad conditions how much pressure can be put on them by the owner that pays the salary.
 
The Sound Guy said:
I don't imagine there is a CVR in a private bird, but I wonder how much Kobe pushed the pilot to continue under what were obviously bad conditions for flying. As I have mentioned, I get on a pilots website a lot and many times it's mentioned during an accident when a pilot wipes out a private owned/leased bird on landing/takeoff in bad conditions how much pressure can be put on them by the owner that pays the salary.
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Conditions where he took off were MVFR with dense fog in the area between the airport and his destination. This is a recipe for disaster. I think he intended to land at the school, not an airport, so he had to be VFR. A lot of larger private aircraft are equipped with voice recorders, because they are easily integrated into the coms. Less likely is the data recorder. The reports I've seen were that he communicated with the ground just moments before crashing, indicating an altitude change from 1200msl to 2000 msl. He didn't indicate any mechanical problems, and he crashed at 1700msl. The dots are pretty easy to connect here. I'd be surprised if it were anything else but controlled flight into terrain due to pilot error.
 
Sometimes the pilot's egos get in the way of safety.

I know someone who was in a plane crash in Germany in fog. She was a project manager for a company that developed and built buildings. She and the owner of her company were touring building sites, traveling by a private charter plane to the different cities that day. The pilot chose to try to land even though he was told by both the tower and the CEO who chartered the plane not to try, but to go to the other airport where the fog was not as thick. The CEO said, "I demand you go to the other airport, do not land here, I forbid you to land."

The pilot said he just wanted to try because he had landed successfully in the fog at this airport in the past. The tower agreed to let him fly over at 300 feet to see. The CEO said he wanted to go to the other airport.

All were injured, none died. But the investigation found that not only should the pilot not have landed, he freaked out and shut off the engine when he missed the approach causing the plane to fall out of the sky quite literally.

From the investigators report:
...when the signal of the marker sounded (Note: Missed Approach Point 0.9 nautical miles DME AUG, DH 250 feet GND), was from of the runway, whereupon he called out to the pilot: "Take off, don't do it, take off". In the further course the green lighting of the threshold was to be seen, but the runway itself hardly. When the plane then a movement to the left and slightly upwards, with a surface hanging slightly to the right, he had again been asked to take off, because under the plane there had been a layer of fog.

...the pilot then "for completely inexplicable reasons took out both throttles" and the aircraft fell from about ten to 15 meters to the ground.

From a video recording of a passenger you could hear, among other things, that for seven seconds a warning sound was heard, which the bang of the impact followed.

The plane collided with the runway, came after a slide of about 104 meters to a standstill and caught fire. The five people on board were able to free themselves from the burning wreck, some of them seriously injured.

She was able to open the cabin door even though she burned her hands. She helped pull out the ones with serious back injury who could not walk. She is about 5 feet 2 inches tall and under 100 pounds dripping wet. She suffered back injury too from the force that the plane hit the tarmac, but she said that she was not going to die in that plane! The fire rescue was there pretty quickly and started spraying the plane.

Flugunfall-Flughafen-Augsburg (10).jpg
 
It sounds even worse now. He actually circled around the Burbank Zoo for 15 minutes waiting for the fog to clear over the Burbank airport where he apparently intended to land so his passengers could continue their trip by limo. Conditions deteriorated over Burbank, and he requested SVFR, Special Visual Flight Rules, which would allow VFR operation in conditions below VFR requirements in an IFR equipped aircraft operating at an altitude below IFR traffic. The intent of this clearance is to allow a nearly trapped aircraft to fly toward better conditions. He knew he was in trouble and was looking for a way out.
 
lotstodo said:
It sounds even worse now. He actually circled around the Burbank Zoo for 15 minutes waiting for the fog to clear over the Burbank airport where he apparently intended to land so his passengers could continue their trip by limo. Conditions deteriorated over Burbank, and he requested SVFR, Special Visual Flight Rules, which would allow VFR operation in conditions below VFR requirements in an IFR equipped aircraft operating at an altitude below IFR traffic. The intent of this clearance is to allow a nearly trapped aircraft to fly toward better conditions. He knew he was in trouble and was looking for a way out.
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No one lived to tell the real story. In my friends case, the investigators had witnesses and a phone video. We will never know what took place. Ego or pressure from the group to get to the limo.

In my friend's case the pilot said nothing would be risked in trying because of the rental vehicles ordered awaiting their landing.
 
Okay, alright... Kobe was killed; we get it.

Does it have to dominate everything ?

Calls for a moment of silence in Congress?

Really? Just because he could hit a 20 foot jumpshot?

Is it sad? sure.
A family tragedy? yep.

A national tragedy? ..... let's not get carried away, okay?
 
MudFlap said:
Okay, alright... Kobe was killed; we get it.

Does it have to dominate everything ?

Calls for a moment of silence in Congress?

Really? Just because he could hit a 20 foot jumpshot?

Is it sad? sure.
A family tragedy? yep.

A national tragedy? ..... let's not get carried away, okay?
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Anna Nicole Smith... just sayin'
 
In a very similar accident this was a loss that I mourned over. I am sorry about Kobe and the others but I am a much bigger SRV fan than Kobe fan. Probably because I am a much bigger music fan than NBA fan.

 
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