Kobe Bryant's fatal accident: what really happened in the helicopter?

The Los Angeles Police Department He has revealed that on Sunday morning he had made the decision that all his helicopters in the area landed due to the poor conditions to fly. However, the device in which they traveled the star of the LakersKobe Bryant, decided to fly.

Bryant, 41, his daughter Gianna, of 13, and seven other people, lost their lives after the helicopter in which they were traveling crashed in the area of Calabasas , a mountainous area on the outskirts of The Angels. Daryl Osby, Los Angeles County fire chief, said in statements to the media collected by the BBC that the accident took place in an area of ​​such difficult access that his team had to climb to arrive. The remains were scattered “in an area the size of an American football field.”

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is responsible for investigating and identifying the probable cause of “all civil aviation accidents in the United States”, as well as train, road and marine accidents. The investigation into the causes that precipitated the fatal accident in which he died Kobe Bryant They are still in a very early stage, and the agency has warned that the process can be extended up to one year.

N72EX helicopter, fly too low to guide you right now

The control tower

Josh Rubenstein, a spokesman for the Los Angeles Police Department, said the air support division of that department left their helicopters on land due to foggy conditions on Sunday morning, adding that they did not fly until late. “The weather situation did not meet our minimum standards for flying,” Rubenstein explained, “the fog was thick enough that we could not fly.”

The minimum flight standard of the Los Angeles Police Department is 3.2 kilometers of visibility Y a roof of clouds of 244 meters. Rubenstein has been categorical in ensuring that the department flies two helicopters when weather conditions allow. One of those flights is in the San Fernando Valley and another in the Los Angeles Basin. Neither of them flew on Sunday morning.

Flight records show that the helicopter in which he was traveling Kobe Bryant surrounded the area of Los Angeles Zoo up to six times at a very low height, predictably waiting for the fog to clear.

According to TMZ, the pilot contacted the control tower at Burbank airport around half past nine in the morning, and reported that he had been circling for 15 minutes. “N72EX helicopter, flies too low to guide you right now,” was the answer.

The ship turned north and a few minutes later he turned to find very thick fog. The helicopter thus headed to the mountainous area and suddenly climbed from 1,200 feet to 2,000 feet.

Bryant's former pilot rules out a mechanical failure

Kurt Deetz, former pilot of Island Express Helicopters, has stated that the helicopter in which the former Lakers player was traveling Kobe Bryant He had a great safety record.

Deetz, former Bryant rider between 2014 and 2016, explained to the newspaper Los Angeles Times that the NBA star was traveling on the ship Two Echo X-ray, of the company Sikorsky S-76B, and with a tail record No. N72EX.

In an official statement, the company has offered its deepest condolences to the families of all the victims and has offered to collaborate with the authorities in search of the causes that caused the tragic accident. Meanwhile, Deetz recalled that when Bryant retired from the NBA in 2016, he flew out of downtown Los Angeles in the same helicopter – painted gray and black with his emblem on his side – and stressed that the player has done more 1,000 flight hours with the ship in which he has found death.

According to Deetz, the conditions of the ship were “fantastic” and Island Express follows a “very good maintenance schedule.” The accident happened shortly before 10 in the morning, near The Virgenes Road Y Willow Glen Street in Calabasas.

The helicopter, built in 1991, left the airport John wayne at 9:06 in the morning, according to flight records available to the public. Authorities received a 911 call at 9:47 and firefighters arrived to discover that the accident had caused a quarter-acre forest fire on steep terrain, the Los Angeles County fire chief said, Daryl Osby.

The operation consisted of 56 people (firefighters, a helicopter with paramedics, command crews and agents from the sheriff's office).

It is impossible to think of a mechanical failure of the twin-engine

Former Kobe Bryant driver

Deetz has agreed that the weather conditions were bad on Sunday morning. For him, the accident was due more to bad weather than mechanical or engine problems. “The probability of a catastrophic failure of the twin-engine on that plane simply does not happen,” values ​​the professional pilot.

According to Deetz's statements at Los Angeles Times it seems that the helicopter was traveling very fast at the moment of impact, at approximately 257 km / h. Deez also explains that after a 40-minute flight, the ship would have about 350 liters of fuel on board. “Enough to start a big fire.”

The nine victims of the accident

In addition to Bryant, his daughter was also traveling in the helicopter Gianna, 13 years old. Another victim is John Altobelli, 56-year-old community school baseball coach Orange Coast College (OCC), according to a statement from the educational center cited by the BBC.

They also traveled in the helicopter Alyssa Y Keri, daughter and wife of Altobelli. Alyssa and Gianna were teammates in Mamba Sports, a sports academy founded by Bryant.

Another of those killed in the fatal accident is Christina Mauser, female basketball coach at an elementary school in the Californian city of Newport beach, has confirmed her husband in social networks.

The helicopter was traveling from the county of Orange -Where Bryant lived with his wife and four daughters- to the city of Thousand Oaks -where the academy is located- to attend a game where Gianna was going to play.

The helicopter was a regular means for the NBA star. I used it frequently to dodge traffic jams on the road.