The college baseball coach’s wife and daughter was with him in the helicopter too :(oh sorry- I see this was mentioned above. a loss for that college and their team as well.
It was so foggy that the LAPD had grounded its helicopters. This from the LA Times.
My heart goes out to his family.??
TMZ who like em or not has very accurate reporting on this stuff has a minute by minute report on the helicopter and it’s issues with the fog
“ – L.A. weather was extremely foggy Sunday morning, and law enforcement sources tell us even LAPD air support was grounded because of it. Flight tracker data shows Kobe’s chopper appeared to first encounter weather issues as it was above the L.A. Zoo. It circled that area at least 6 times at a very low altitude – around 875 feet – perhaps waiting for the fog to clear. We know the pilot contacted the control tower at Burbank Airport around 9:30 AM PT, and the tower was aware the pilot had been circling for about 15 minutes. The pilot eventually headed north along the 118 freeway before turning to the west, and started following above the 101 freeway around Woodland Hills, CA.
At around 9:40 AM they encounter more weather – as in seriously heavy fog – and the chopper turned south. This was critical, because they turned toward a mountainous area. The pilot suddenly and rapidly climbed from about 1200 feet up to 2000 feet.
However, moments later – around 9:45 AM – they flew into a mountain at 1700 feet. Flight tracker data shows they were flying at about 161 knots.”
The flight details and ATC correspondence are already in the public domain.
The helicopter was circling, requesting special VFR, which is a flight rule regular airplanes can’t even operate under. Horrible conditions.
Very tragic for all.
My husband viewed the video of the helicopter crashing (I can’t bear to watch it), and he says the accident doesn’t look weather related. He thinks it was a catastrophic mechanical failure of some sort, fire, engine, flight controls. You don’t just fall out of the sky, on fire, being tossed about, because of weather. Unless you hit something. And then, who knows what the accident could look like? Maybe the video was shot after an impact. I don’t want to speculate, as the accident report will tell the story. It will be helpful there is a video of it, but even more awful for all the families of those on board.?
Christina Mauser, a coach at Kobe’s academy was also on board. She leaves a husband, Matt, and 3 young kids (9, 11, 12).
What a wonderful euphemism for “he raped a 19 year old clerk at a hotel where he was a guest and then paid a team of legal experts to drag her reputation through the mud when she reported it.”
I too am surprised at the adulation. A talented athlete, yes. Had his prior sexual conduct occurred today on any college in America, he would very likely be expelled and possibly jailed.
While he was clearly no saint, how it was handled back then was beyond distasteful, he was also accused of many other infidelities, the amount of coverage seems extreme/excessive, there are many other important, and timely news items and things going on in the news today that seem to be getting pushed to page 7, as they say, that many would probably like to hear more about (and its also the International Holocaust Remembrance Day), maybe some think that perhaps its not the time to drag his name and the awful stuff up while his pieces parts are still strewn over a mountainside. Just a thought.
No one is dragging his name-I give him a lot of credit for the public apology he made to the girl, her family, and the community, and the recognition he showed of the pain of sexual assault survivors. And I don’t think anyone cares about his adultery. But the gush of adulation overlooks a mixed life.
It doesn’t necessarily overlook a mixed life any more than the tributes to Ted Kennedy poured in when he died. The Chappaquiddick stuff was not forgotten, just deferred. People are claiming he is/was an “icon”. Perhaps the way he died, the people who died so suddenly and tragically with them (especially the kids), etc, may in part feed the reaction it is getting.
I agree that the amount of coverage it is getting, to the exclusion of other important news items, seems excessive.
@busdriver11 Word is the helicopter crashed into a mountain while climbing due to visibility issues.
I don’t think that it’s all adulation, I think a lot of it is just shock and grief. Especially once it was determined that his daughter died with him. And it keeps getting sadder as we learn about the other passengers who died and the family members they leave behind.
I don’t think I know anyone who hasn’t lived a “mixed life”. And if you listen to those who really knew him speak, he was highly respected off the court and definitely became a better man over the last decade.
Yeah, we just listened to a detailed review of this. There is a huge amount of data available about this accident, sounds like CFIT (controlled flight into terrain). Some accidents take years to investigate, this one might be rather quick. So sad and unnecessary.
Everyone makes mistakes, but violent sexual assault is not usually among them, nor should we minimize that act as just another mistake. He did appear to have grown emotionally since that incident, and his at least partial acceptance of responsibility is a model.
It’s perhaps likely in many people’s view, distasteful to address that at this moment. Let’s move on so it doesn’t become a debate.
Rape is distasteful at any time, particularly for the victim.
Let’s move on.