What interests me, and I’m sure someone here has the information, is who decides that you can just take flight in adverse weather conditions? Is it up to the individual pilot? The airport? The company the pilot works for? Was the pilot warned not to fly?
My hope is that the passengers were unaware of the impending tragedy - it breaks my heart to think parents had to see such fear in the faces of their children.
About 10 years ago a cofounder of a company I worked for, in the 90s, took off in her private plane with her son in an ice storm. It crashed, killing them both. The NTSB report showed she didn’t deice the plane, and witness reprots said she was in a hurry to get home. This was an experienced pilot with thousands of hours of flying experience who normally would have known better.
I suspect that when it comes to personal aircraft or small charter companies, there is a laxity that just doesn’t exist with large commercial operations, who take passenger safety very seriously and have strict go/no-go criteria.
I didn’t remember all the details and absolutely nothing I read about him yesterday even mentioned it. Secondly, I wasn’t sure if even mentioning what i did remember would be allowed on the thread.
But thanks for insinuating you knew what was in my mind-that I knew full details and was purposely being cavalier about it.
The death of a public figure is an appropriate time for examination of his legacy in its entirety, and fortunately most media reports are now doing so.
My stepdad was a helicopter test pilot. He told me that most accidents occur due to either pilot error or weather-or both-when pilots fly in weather they know presents risk.
We will have to wait for more information. But one can certainly predict that there will be suits brought against someone for this.
I’m curious about this too. The visibility was bad enough that LAPD had grounded all their helicopters. Less than 2 miles of visibility and a certain “ceiling” means no flying. I would want private pilots to follow those guidelines too.
There was a helicopter crash in the water off Manhattan recently in bad visibility. Kobe owned this helicopter and was accustomed to commuting with it. I wonder about safety statistics for private planes and helicopters.
Some interesting notes about private helicopter safety…
“ However, personal flying accounted for a disproportionate share of fatal helicopter accidents in the U.S. from 2009 to 2019, according to a study by the U.S. Helicopter Safety Team. Private use accounted for 3% of all flight hours in that period but 22% of fatal accidents.”
I saw this helicopter yesterday just before the crash. It was very low and loud, doubtless because it was so low. So low my friends and I commented on it and we are used to seeing helicopters in this area. It was headed in a west southwest direction from my vantage point. The morning was very foggy.
I know this area very well. This area is the Santa Monica Mountains. The crash was sort of catacornered from Malibu Creek State Park which many of you would recognize from the opening scenes of the MASH TV show. Very mountainous.
I’d also add that the amount of adulation and coverage being given here is surprising given the “Me Too” and “Believe all Women” movement. Some things get swept under the rug.
My speculation is that he chose to ignore the risks of the foggy weather and chose to fly anyway and the pilot went along with it. My other thought is that at least he has the billion or so dollars to pay for wrongful death settlements to the other passengers’ families. Some of them had minor children and lost a provider, a father or mother. Some lost a sibling. A terrible tragedy for them.
I listened to what is supposedly the communications between the controller and the helicopter pilot. If correct, the communications indicate that the helicopter was operating under special-VFR (SVFR) rules due to the weather. Under these rules the aircraft needs to operate clear of clouds and ensure that they have sufficient visibility. In the first part of the audio the helicopter was under radar contact and being followed by the controller. Later, control was handed off to another controller and radar service (by the first controller) was terminated. When contact with the new controller was initiated the helicopter was informed that flight following (radar) was not available because the helicopter was too low. So it seems clear that weather may have been involved, but that does not discount the possibility of mechanical failure.
What surprises me (I used to be a controller years ago) is that it seems like the pilot (and perhaps the helicopter) were not certified to operate under IFR rules with full air traffic control services.
They were likely trying to navigate by the 101 Freeway. There is no way a person could confuse Las Virgenes Road for the 101. They must have lost visibility of the freeway in the fog.
I wondered the same. Sometimes when dealing with celebrities who are very persuasive and/or whom the professional admires greatly, their better judgment gets thrown out the window. When I heard some of these details, it made me think of the doctor who treated Michael Jackson with propofol at his home without the proper monitoring equipment. There is no way the doctor did not understand how far from standard practice this whole thing was. But either he was completely starstruck or too drawn to the money that he just didn’t do what he, as the professional, should have done-say no to someone who might be very persuasive but does not understand the actual risks of what he is requesting.
It does seem very wrong that a private helicopter would be allowed to take off in conditions that other public entities deemed too unsafe.
Well, speculation means nothing. If everyone onboard perished, not sure how Kobe can be deemed the decision maker and thus negligent. No one has any idea what conversations occurred.
I’d say it is the responsibility of the pilot 100% to determine whether or not it is safe to fly.
That was my point exactly. Whether you are a doctor fielding requests for medications or a pilot being asked to make a trip, it’s the professional’s job to use their expertise to make the proper judgment. The non professional making the request cannot be expected to know the risks.
Bryant owned the helicopter. The pilot was his employee. Yes, the pilot should have said ‘no’. But Bryant will still be the person liable in wrongful death suits and his estate will be the target defendant since that is where the money is.
^^^No doubt.
Total fake news. The video that’s widely circulated is from a crash in the UAE in 2018.
Another thing that will be engraved in the public mindset forever after will be that “Kobe Bryant and his 13 year old daughter Gianna died in a helicopter accident, along with seven others.”
This will probably be painful for those who loved these “seven others” passionately as wives, husbands, children, parents. To see your beloved reduced to these terms forever in the media will probably bring a measure of additional pain.
I thought the same whenever the news reported that “Nicole Brown Simpson was murdered, along with her friend.”
I keep wondering what that woman in Colorado is feeling now.
Me, too.
Even the articles that are now tentatively starting to refer to his “complicated legacy” barely mention the fact that he violently raped a 19 year old employee of a hotel at which he was staying; the articles list his amazing sports feats, have a sentence or two about the ugliness apparently nobody wants to talk about and then close with stating what a great guy he was. Must be very painful for the woman (she was barely a legal adult then, but she’s since aged into being an adult) he raped and her family.
But hey, the most important thing is how great they guy was at sports and being polite in how we discuss his “complicated legacy”, right?
Or maybe on the bright side, this crash means hotel clerks everywhere are just a little safer. That’s positive at least.
Wow - just wow. Another thread worthy of abandoning. Maybe a title change is in order.