Kobe Bryant killed in helicopter crash

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Ackmed

Diamond Member
Oct 1, 2003
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Its incredibly sad. He was a father and husband. And the mother lost a husband and a daughter. I cant even imagine, its terrible. There are also others who were lost on the same flight, that get over looked. Or the many people who died in a car crash the same day or since then. Life happens, sometimes it really sucks. Its easier to connect with Kobe because he was so famous, but I really dont feel worse for his family than I would someone down the street that it happened to.

And Lebron claiming he is taking it on himself to carry on his legacy seems needy to me, trying to make himself the focal point. Poor taste imo.

HomerJS said:
There was an accusation. The case was dropped because the accuser was unwilling to testify.

Those are my thoughts.
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Thats an interesting stance to take on this person, when that has not been the case on others that you have had an opinion of. Or other people on these forums. But that is not uncommon. Swaying opinion in similar situations depending on politics of a person.
 
skyking

skyking

Lifer
Nov 21, 2001
22,014
4,782
146
Just going from the raw data and the witness report in the links above, I would surmise that he was in spatial disorientation. Even when you're an instrument pilot if you're not firmly transitioned to the gauges, you still tend to try and follow those outside cues. If you don't make a clear transition to gauges you're fucked. It is one of the basic lessons in flight instruction to take somebody up have them look down for a while and then I would put the airplane in a really unusual attitude and then he could look up look at the gauges and see if he could recover. There are things I can do to your inner ear with certain maneuvers that will leave you completely disoriented. I can make a student think he's in a descent, when I really have the airplane in a steep climbing turn.
 
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skyking

skyking

Lifer
Nov 21, 2001
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VRAMdemon said:
I have a question...According to information from the NTSB, the helicopter's radar returns indicated that just before impact, it was in a "descending left .............
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sorry I meant to quote your post, see above.
 
BlueWeasel

BlueWeasel

Lifer
Jun 2, 2000
15,940
474
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skyking said:
Just going from the raw data and the witness report in the links above, I would surmise that he was in spatial disorientation. Even when you're an instrument pilot if you're not firmly transitioned to the gauges, you still tend to try and follow those outside cues. If you don't make a clear transition to gauges you're fucked. It is one of the basic lessons in flight instruction to take somebody up have them look down for a while and then I would put the airplane in a really unusual attitude and then he could look up look at the gauges and see if he could recover. There are things I can do to your inner ear with certain maneuvers that will leave you completely disoriented. I can make a student think he's in a descent, when I really have the airplane in a steep climbing turn.
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I know very little about flying but have learned a lot over the past few days as a result of this tragic accident.

Regarding spatial disorientation, I have read that it is possible for pilots to completely lose control in as little as 10 seconds once visibility is completely lost (entering IMC). Is that true?

Also, could spatial disorientation explain the reported decent of 4000 ft/min right before the crash? The pilot's senses are saying everything is fine but he doesn't realize the rate of descent?
 
V

VRAMdemon

Diamond Member
Aug 16, 2012
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skyking said:
Just going from the raw data and the witness report in the links above, I would surmise that he was in spatial disorientation. Even when you're an instrument pilot if you're not firmly transitioned to the gauges, you still tend to try and follow those outside cues. If you don't make a clear transition to gauges you're fucked. It is one of the basic lessons in flight instruction to take somebody up have them look down for a while and then I would put the airplane in a really unusual attitude and then he could look up look at the gauges and see if he could recover. There are things I can do to your inner ear with certain maneuvers that will leave you completely disoriented. I can make a student think he's in a descent, when I really have the airplane in a steep climbing turn.
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Thanks for your perspective...is it safe to say the pilot was trying to fly visually in poor weather?. Is a possible explanation that he encountered worsening visibility, and was either attempting a fairly radical maneuver (perhaps a 180-degree turn in the canyon) to avoid cloud cover, or attempting to transition from flying visually to flying without external visibility on the instruments?. Shouldn't the latter involve an immediate climb in a safe direction to a safe altitude for the highest terrain in the surrounding area?.

If you lose external visuals and are not fully on top of the transition from scanning outside to scanning the instruments to monitor your altitude etc., I'm assuming as a pilot, you can become disoriented surprisingly quickly?. Is it true that when you can't see outside, the cues from your system can be unreliable, and you can be in an accelerating turning descent and feel as though you are climbing straight ahead?. Is it likely he entered IMC and lost awareness of his aircraft's altitude and speed?. If this is what happened, then is it safe to assume there was nothing wrong with the aircraft, and it was doing exactly what his control inputs told it to do?.

Is it possible that nobody on the flight, except the pilot, knew anything was ever amiss?. And even if the pilot may have just thought that he was disoriented, but could get out of it with a few maneuvers. Meaning, nobody thought they were going to die before they crash landed - they were just belted in, shooting the shit, maybe in mid sentence, when life ended in a violent collision. I guess that is marginally better than being terrified in the seconds before your life ends, but not by much.
 
skyking

skyking

Lifer
Nov 21, 2001
22,014
4,782
146
To answer your important question, they knew. I imagine the last 15 to 20 seconds of that flight were terrifying :(
 
senseamp

senseamp

Lifer
Feb 5, 2006
35,787
6,195
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We all feel sad for Kobe et al, but regularly commuting by helicopter is ridiculous, and he should have known better. It's creating a lot of noise pollution over L.A. and I am sure also air pollution and a ton of greenhouse gas emissions when we already have a climate crisis. I get that he was rich and wasn't going to take same transport as mere mortals, but he basically spread his life over several counties and used a helicopter as a kludge to fix a problem he himself created by not staying local. If you live a Newport Beach, open a gym in Orange County, not two counties over in Ventura.
 
HomerJS

HomerJS

Lifer
Feb 6, 2002
36,056
27,785
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Ackmed said:
Thats an interesting stance to take on this person, when that has not been the case on others that you have had an opinion of. Or other people on these forums. But that is not uncommon. Swaying opinion in similar situations depending on politics of a person.
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I can't think of another occasion where an assault is claimed in a 1 on 1 situation/no witnesses. Kobe did not have a history of any abuse until then. If you have an example I'm open to the possibility of hypocrisy.

Free to discuss. For the record I have no idea what were Kobe's politics.
 
hal2kilo

hal2kilo

Lifer
Feb 24, 2009
23,431
10,327
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senseamp said:
We all feel sad for Kobe et al, but regularly commuting by helicopter is ridiculous, and he should have known better. It's creating a lot of noise pollution over L.A. and I am sure also air pollution and a ton of greenhouse gas emissions when we already have a climate crisis. I get that he was rich and wasn't going to take same transport as mere mortals, but he basically spread his life over several counties and used a helicopter as a kludge to fix a problem he himself created by not staying local. If you live a Newport Beach, open a gym in Orange County, not two counties over in Ventura.
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When I was going to tech school in Atlanta back in the early seventies, the banks had their big deposits handled by helicopter, and the cops had a bunch of them to the point that they were shining lights in your windows. So I flipped the bird at the MFr pig, and from that time on I would find myself being followed from time to time when I was walking on the street. It was so fucking annoying.
I did live in the highest crime rate section of the city at the time. One block off the strip.
 
Ichinisan

Ichinisan

Lifer
Oct 9, 2002
28,298
1,234
136
hal2kilo said:
When I was going to tech school in Atlanta back in the early seventies, the banks had their big deposits handled by helicopter, and the cops had a bunch of them to the point that they were shining lights in your windows. So I flipped the bird at the MFr pig, and from that time on I would find myself being followed from time to time when I was walking on the street. It was so fucking annoying.
I did live in the highest crime rate section of the city at the time. One block off the strip.
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No. They aren't pursuing someone who flipped off a helicopter pilot. That's absurd.

"That's what they always say"
-Practically everyone that suffers with paranoid delusions of gangstalking
 
Arkaign

Arkaign

Lifer
Oct 27, 2006
20,736
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K1052 said:
Private, non-EMS, helicopters should probably be banned in all urban areas.
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Looking at the statistics by deaths per flight hour and per mile traveled vs either private fixed wing aircraft or vehicle, I absolutely agree. It's a senseless luxury that puts people at unreasonable risk of death, including bystanders on the ground. IIRC Manhattan is basically like this, it's incredibly difficult to get any helo clearance for that island, despite the immense wealth on tap there.

If not an outright ban on private helos in and around urban areas, then minimum safety standards need to be WAY WAY higher. The IR and positioning systems should be held as mandatory and of extreme high quality, with regular inspections. And the regulations should have an eye towards implementing further solid systems to enhance safety both for the flyers and the civilian population below.

I live in North Texas, and around here private helos are not much of a thing, though there are a sizeable number of fixed wing private aircraft incidents each year. Per mile/per trip they're safer however, and more justifiable by a long shot.

One of my clients is involved with CareFlite, and I've gotten to speak with a few of their Helo pilots, and WOW those guys are special. Most of them are ex-military pilots eg; retired 1st Air Cavalry Apache pilots, and the level of skill and lack of screwing around is pretty intense. They keep their ships clean enough to eat off of any surface either seen or unseen, and are exactly the level of boss mode you want having the stick of any of those birds.

 
K1052

K1052

Elite Member
Aug 21, 2003
46,044
33,088
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Arkaign said:
Looking at the statistics by deaths per flight hour and per mile traveled vs either private fixed wing aircraft or vehicle, I absolutely agree. It's a senseless luxury that puts people at unreasonable risk of death, including bystanders on the ground. IIRC Manhattan is basically like this, it's incredibly difficult to get any helo clearance for that island, despite the immense wealth on tap there.
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NYC greatly restricted landings on buildings after the gruesome incident on the Pan Am building in 77. The crash last year in midtown has prompted the city to consider banning non-essential flights over Manhattan but they'd need the FAA's agreement to do that. They city could however close its three Manhattan heliports which would basically halt traffic to/from the island but NJ is a problem still.
 
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Viper1j

Viper1j

Diamond Member
Jul 31, 2018
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As a fellow pilot, I blame the pilot. Even a GA guy flying an ultralight on the weekends, has a duty to know where he's at, AT ALL TIMES! This wasn't his first dance with that terrain, he knew (or should have known) where every twig, bush, tree, bird, and squirrel was.

Running into a cliff, is a Joseph Hazelwood thing. You can't say "It just jumped out in front of me!" when you run into an entire fucking state! :mad:

senseamp said:
We all feel sad for Kobe et al, but regularly commuting by helicopter is ridiculous, and he should have known better. It's creating a lot of noise pollution over L.A. and I am sure also air pollution and a ton of greenhouse gas emissions when we already have a climate crisis. I get that he was rich and wasn't going to take same transport as mere mortals, but he basically spread his life over several counties and used a helicopter as a kludge to fix a problem he himself created by not staying local. If you live a Newport Beach, open a gym in Orange County, not two counties over in Ventura.
Click to expand...

W the everloving F! You are officially aviation clueless. the DB level on a Bell 525 Executive is 80% less than that dumb ass kid, "bumping" his hip hop speakers right next to you at a traffic light. And the pilot still wears sound dampers!

Back when I lived in Riverside, I used to keep a beater car at Orange County Muni, and I flew out of Rubidoux to be at work in 20 minutes instead of 2 hours to get to Anaheim.
 
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skyking

skyking

Lifer
Nov 21, 2001
22,014
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That's not aviation clueless above. I agree that he was not constrained by the same things the rest of us are, he could easily keep his business close to home.
 
Viper1j

Viper1j

Diamond Member
Jul 31, 2018
4,169
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" he should have known better. It's creating a lot of noise pollution over L.A "

That's clueless.

That's like complaining about a bumblebee buzzing during an earthquake.
 
woolfe9998

woolfe9998

Lifer
Apr 8, 2013
16,188
14,092
136
It's seriously repulsive behavior but I'm not sure about the lawsuit. In CA, invasion of privacy requires that the private information be disclosed to the general public and that evidently did not happen here.
 
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