before he had kids. So, yeah he could still be a great father and family man to them.

word. I think it is a pretty good guess that the dude was rolling along. Weather got bad tried to turn around and pull up and since you can't just stop and hover he flew into mountain.

I think one thing the guys on The Pros Helicopter podcast were talking about was just how good of a Pilot StringfellowHawk had to be to get Airwolf out of that fake canyon and into Supersonic speed with old balls dom in the back smelling like ben gay

He was also like 23 years old

It's heartbreaking to think of them going down and him knowing he couldn't do anything to protect his daughter. Whatever flaws the guy had and possibly heinous act he committed in 2003, he was obviously a very loving Dad who did a TON for women's and girl's basketball. As someone who hates the Lakers and was never much of a Kobe fan when he was playing, this has me way more shook than I ever would have expected.

It appears the helicopter didn’t go down but flew directly into the mountain at a high rate of speed. They passengers likely didn’t know what happened to them.

Kobe was a god in Los Angeles, so this hurts especially with those photos with his Daughter. She had a full life of promise ahead of her, it’s gut wrenching.

Those comments. LMAO

OJ is weird.

nlm

It sounds weird to say but that makes me feel better I guess. At least they only had seconds or less to process what was happening.

Yeah I decided to play a poker tournament today at Hollywood Park. The whole time, all TVs in the place kept showing clips of Kobe with Gigi. Just heartbreaking.

wow! haven't been around on the topic for a bit since earlier this afternoon. It jumped from 5 dead to 9?!

Yeah once you get out of Malibu there aren’t any canyon walls...

Looking like CFIT.

It had to be terrifying for the pilot. The passengers probably didn’t have a clue unless the pilot gave away how tense the situation was.

I’ve flown in situations when unforcasted weather moved in, and it is intense. You have to have the guts to make the decision to divert and wait. It’s harder than it sounds.

A very few times in my career I got pushed pretty hard by the passengers to fly into situations that were not safe. I stood my ground and pissed them off, but when people realize they are arguing with a guy that’s trying to save his own life they usually back off.

This pilot might have been pressured into doing something he knew wasn’t safe. Every single pilot with any decent amount of time has experienced this.

https://www.latimes.com/california/s...icopter-safety

Likely. Bad judgment. Guys always say, “ He was a good pilot, right up until....’

Debris field and impact scar point to flying into the earth in controlled flight. Possible mechanical in flight. But probably not transmission, tail rotor or main rotor drive train based on impact/debris. If so ,little time to cut power/ reduce torque off the tail rotor- the cause of violent spinning from that earlier helo crash video.
If loss of power but drive train is functioning. Here’s where the “good pilot stuff” comes in. Again the impact scar doesn’t point to that.

“ Loss of situational awareness led to ground impact resulting in occupiable living space being reduced”

i read that they were climbing at the time and then it just started to dive rapidly and at the moment of impact it was traveling at around 184mph. i bet everyone on board except for the pilot even knew what was going on and i bet they didn’t even know what was coming

https://flightaware.com/live/flight/...0200126/1708ZZ

Flight profile. Linked earlier

Last tracks show climb. Minor descent previously.

Terrain avoidance? Others here know that terrain much better than me. Also points to powered flight.

Some pilots think flying instruments is a near emergency. Some helo guys think IFR equals “I Follow Roads.” We know from the comms that this guy was requesting special Visual flight rules and following roads when the controllers are sequencing IFR traffic, and dealing with a wave off or go around-likely due to weather.

I guess I don’t have much sympathy for the aviating just for Koby, his daughter, and the other occupants.