Kobe Bryant and daughter killed in helicopter crash

[Eleazar]

No warranty on this, but it's on TMZ.

https://www.tmz.com/2020/01/26/kobe-...-in-calabasas/

[notorious]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

Yeah, my brain scrambled there and I was reading the wrong side of the graph. He was clearly descending pretty quickly at the end there.

Now the negative vertical speed makes more sense. The tight scale of the correct axis and short timeline threw me off. Losing 800 feet relative to sea level in 11 seconds is incredibly dramatic.

So now I wonder if maybe there WAS some kind of catastrophic failure on the aircraft. What else would've had him giving up altitude like that when he's clearly looking to find visibility and has already held down low (and knows full well that getting below the cloud deck isn't a realistic possibility).

It is a hard graph to disseminate.

[DeepPurple]

Flying in IFR conditions when your a VFR aircraft is the scariest thing on earth. In 1976 I flew with a co-worker in a Cessna 172 into Tallahassee Florida and all was well and we landed took a break and then departed southeast toward St. Petersburg.

I was flying with a fellow who had been an Army Helicopter pilot and was IFR rated in the military for helicopter, but he was transitioning to fixed wing civil license and he needed to make a trip with 3 legs with each leg 200 miles apart. We had departed Savannah earlier for Tallahassee and now were flying our final leg back to St. Pete.

As we climbed out to about 2000' he went right into the clouds, we were talking to Tallahassee Aproach and I kept hearing aircraft over the frequency calling for landing from the south looking for IFR clearance. We were VFR and climbing in the clouds towards the south, I was feeling very queasy at this point. All I could do was look out at the strobes on the end of each wing tip and see the light bounce off the clouds. He thought we could break through in a few hundred feet. As it turned out, we went to 13,000 feet before we got on top and we also had no oxygen.

I can tell you when we got around Crystal River I was so happy when we started descending and flying in and around the clouds until we were in clear weather below the clouds. It's a trip I never forget.

[notorious]

Originally Posted by DeepPurple

Flying in IFR conditions when your a VFR aircraft is the scariest thing on earth. In 1976 I flew with a co-worker in a Cessna 172 into Tallahassee Florida and all was well and we landed took a break and then departed southeast toward St. Petersburg.

I was flying with a fellow who had been an Army Helicopter pilot and was IFR rated in the military for helicopter, but he was transitioning to fixed wing civil license and he needed to make a trip with 3 legs with each leg 200 miles apart. We had departed Savannah earlier for Tallahassee and now were flying our final leg back to St. Pete.

As we climbed out to about 2000' he went right into the clouds, we were talking to Tallahassee Aproach and I kept hearing aircraft over the frequency calling for landing from the south looking for IFR clearance. We were VFR and climbing in the clouds towards the south, I was feeling very queasy at this point. All I could do was look out at the strobes on the end of each wing tip and see the light bounce off the clouds. He thought we could break through in a few hundred feet. As it turned out, we went to 13,000 feet before we got on top and we also had no oxygen.

I can tell you when we got around Crystal River I was so happy when we started descending and flying in and around the clouds until we were in clear weather below the clouds. It's a trip I never forget.

Crystal River. I've been to that airport a ton.

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by DeepPurple

Flying in IFR conditions when your a VFR aircraft is the scariest thing on earth. In 1976 I flew with a co-worker in a Cessna 172 into Tallahassee Florida and all was well and we landed took a break and then departed southeast toward St. Petersburg.

I was flying with a fellow who had been an Army Helicopter pilot and was IFR rated in the military for helicopter, but he was transitioning to fixed wing civil license and he needed to make a trip with 3 legs with each leg 200 miles apart. We had departed Savannah earlier for Tallahassee and now were flying our final leg back to St. Pete.

As we climbed out to about 2000' he went right into the clouds, we were talking to Tallahassee Aproach and I kept hearing aircraft over the frequency calling for landing from the south looking for IFR clearance. We were VFR and climbing in the clouds towards the south, I was feeling very queasy at this point. All I could do was look out at the strobes on the end of each wing tip and see the light bounce off the clouds. He thought we could break through in a few hundred feet. As it turned out, we went to 13,000 feet before we got on top and we also had no oxygen.

I can tell you when we got around Crystal River I was so happy when we started descending and flying in and around the clouds until we were in clear weather below the clouds. It's a trip I never forget.

I'm sure this is universal for all pilot training, but when I was doing my lessons, we spent the first several weeks/months with an hour in the classroom mostly learning how to spot/predict weather before we did a 1/2 hour or so going over checklists and another 1/2 hour at most actually flying the plane.

You just know so damn little when doing VFR flying that EVERYTHING has to be planned out and if you can't plan it, just don't fly it.

Then again, I very much doubt Kobe Bryant's pilot lacked any sort of credentials. I'm sure the dude was certified in every conceivable fashion.

[Coyote]

The mishap board is our best shot at determining the causes. But that is slow and deliberate.

TMZ on the pilot from other pilots that TMZ found again:

“ Even more baffling, we've been told the pilot was extremely experienced flying in that area -- and was even a flight instructor. One seasoned helicopter pilot told TMZ, he could not understand why Kobe's pilot would have maintained a speed of 161 knots in such dense fog. One of the benefits of a helicopter is you can go much slower -- even 15 mph -- to gingerly avoid terrain if you're uncertain.”

https://www.tmz.com/2020/01/27/kobe-...ain-slow-down/

And I don’t get all this concern about instrument flight....I’m kidding.
Mostly, says the guy with a Naval Special Instrument card and over 2000 hours of actual IMC time....
It does get your attention. Low level inadvertent IMC in rough terrain carrying pax (1of them Koby) I’m sure had the guy squeezing black juice out of the stick (cyclic) all the way through the end. Collective positioning at impact will be very telling of his last thoughts.

[Kiimo]

Breaking: Tuesday's Lakers vs. Clippers game has been postponed out of respect for Lakers organization after the death of Kobe Bryant pic.twitter.com/Mn1p28aa3J

— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) January 27, 2020

People in this city have been looking forward to this game all season but it makes sense

[DRM08]

Originally Posted by Coyote

The mishap board is our best shot at determining the causes. But that is slow and deliberate.

TMZ on the pilot from other pilots that TMZ found again:

“ Even more baffling, we've been told the pilot was extremely experienced flying in that area -- and was even a flight instructor. One seasoned helicopter pilot told TMZ, he could not understand why Kobe's pilot would have maintained a speed of 161 knots in such dense fog. One of the benefits of a helicopter is you can go much slower -- even 15 mph -- to gingerly avoid terrain if you're uncertain.”

https://www.tmz.com/2020/01/27/kobe-...ain-slow-down/

And I don’t get all this concern about instrument flight....I’m kidding.
Mostly, says the guy with a Naval Special Instrument card and over 2000 hours of actual IMC time....
It does get your attention. Low level inadvertent IMC in rough terrain carrying pax (1of them Koby) I’m sure had the guy squeezing black juice out of the stick (cyclic) all the way through the end. Collective positioning at impact will be very telling of his last thoughts.

I hate to say it. What if the pilot was suicidal? Remember the plane crash a few years ago where a pilot did that and took about 200 people with him into the French Alps.

[Kiimo]

I feel like there's a better way to say that

[Coyote]

Yeah very rare of course. we’ll see that too (human factors- divorces, personal life, etc. will be looked at)

Last year I lost a too young father/husband civilian buddy of my son, that in part chose an airline gig after hanging out at my house for over 10 years that my family was sure was due to a suicidal pilot.

It was the Amazon contract carrier that impacted weirdly on final near Houston. My friend was just “dead-heading” in the jump seat catching a ride. The board looked at it all for over a year. Guy was just a bad driver and didn’t believe/follow his systems and instruments. I initially suspect similar here.

[ILChief]

Glad I have nfl network

[Titty Meat]

Seems pretty doubtful the pilot committed suicide sounds like the conditions went from OK a few miles away to really bad where they were at.

I asked this earlier and got no response. What should the pilot had done in that situation with the fog?

[PHOG]

Originally Posted by Titty Meat

Seems pretty doubtful the pilot committed suicide sounds like the conditions went from OK a few miles away to really bad where they were at.

I asked this earlier and got no response. What should the pilot had done in that situation with the fog?

I'm no pilot, but to me, wouldn't you slow down? Of course, barring any mechanical malfunction.

[mahomesburning]

Originally Posted by Chiefshrink

Reading the posts here, it sounds very similar to what happened to Patsy Cline when she died in a Cessna that flew right into a cliff. Have any of you pilots ever looked at her plane crash? Just curious.

It also sounds similar to what happened to Stevie Ray Vaughan when he was killed in a helicopter that went into a ski hill near the Alpine Valley Music Theatre.

[Valiant]

Originally Posted by Titty Meat

Probably a dumb question but what should the pilot have done once he encountered those conditions?

Altitude?

[rabblerouser]

Originally Posted by Chiefshrink

Reading the posts here, it sounds very similar to what happened to Patsy Cline when she died in a Cessna that flew right into a cliff. Have any of you pilots ever looked at her plane crash? Just curious.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1963_Camden_PA-24_crash

At 6:29 p.m., the aircraft crashed into a wooded swampy area 1 mile (1.6 km) north of Highway 70 and 5 miles (8.0 km) west of Camden. The aircraft was destroyed on impact and all four occupants were killed. The witness described hearing a dull-sounding crash, followed by complete silence.
During the FAA investigation, the aircraft's propeller was found to have contacted a tree 30 feet (9.1 m) above the ground while the aircraft was in a 26° nose-down attitude. The right wing then collided with another tree 32 feet (9.8 m) to the right, causing the airplane to become inverted. The downward angle increased to 45° and the Comanche hit the ground at an estimated speed of 175 miles per hour (282 km/h), about 62 feet (19 m) from the initial contact.[1]

Inspection of the airframe and engine disclosed that the aircraft was intact and the engine was developing substantial power before impacting the trees. Investigators found no evidence of engine or system failure or malfunction of the aircraft prior to the crash. The airplane was determined to be slightly over maximum gross weight when it departed Dyersburg Regional Airport, but this fact had no bearing on the crash. An autopsy of the pilot discovered no physical or medical concerns that could have been a factor in the accident.

This says absolutely nothing about crashing into a cliff.

You sure you're not just remembering the Jessica Lange movie about Patsy Cline?