Kobe Bryant DIES IN HELICOPTER CRASH

[Arnold]

Kobe Bryant DIES IN HELICOPTER CRASH ... Everyone On Board Dead

Kobe Bryant died in a helicoper crash in Calabasas Sunday morning ... TMZ Sports has confirmed.

Kobe was traveling with at least 3 other people in his private helicopter when it went down. A fire broke out. Emergency personnel responded, but nobody on board survived. 5 people are confirmed dead. We're told Vanessa Bryant was not among those on board.

Eyewitnesses also tell us that they heard the helicopter's engine sputtering before it went down. The cause of the crash is under investigation.

Kobe has famously used a helicopter to travel for years -- dating back to when he played for the Lakers. He was known for commuting from Newport Beach, CA to the STAPLES Center in DTLA in his Sikorsky S-76 chopper.

KB is survived by his wife Vanessa, and their four daughters -- Gianna, Natalia and Bianca and their newborn Capri.

Kobe has recently been spotted out at NBA games with his daughter Gianna -- a rising star basketball player herself. Their youngest daughter, Capri, was just born in June 2019.

Kobe is widely considered one of the greatest NBA players of all time -- making 18 All-Star teams during his 20 year career with the Lakers. He was a first-round pick in the 1996 draft, winning 5 NBA championships, 2 NBA Finals MVPs and he was the league MVP in '08.

He was on 15 All-NBA Teams, 12 All-Defensive Teams and led the league in scoring for two seasons. He ranks fourth in the NBA for all-time regular season scoring and all-time postseason scoring.

Source: https://www.tmz.com/2020/01/26/kobe-bryant-killed-dead-helicopter-crash-in-calabasas/

 

[Arnold]

https://youtu.be/22lD14AwAdU

 

[solidassears]

Highly unlikely they actually hard the engine sputtering. The Helicopter that crashed has two turbine engines, they do not sputter. It they're lit and running it sounds like a huge blowtorch, if they're not running, silence. If there was a loss of fuel or restricted flow to the engines, they will flame out. I have no idea why it crashed, I do know the engines were not sputtering. Most likely is either a mechanical failure of the controls or pilot incapacitation.

 

[Arnold]

He was a lying, cheating piece of shit rapist so not a big loss.

 

[solidassears]

He was a lying, cheating piece of shit rapist so not a big loss.

Yeah, but his 13 year old daughter didn't deserve that. I don't know much about Kobe and nothing of the other 8 that died. Something terrible happened for that helio to come down, the most suspicious thing I've read is that there was fog and bad visibility:

[h=2]LAPD says weather conditions didn't meet standards for flying[/h]From CNN's Sarah Moon
Weather conditions on Sunday morning did not meet the Los Angeles Police Department?s minimum standards for flying, spokesman Josh Rubenstein confirmed to CNN.
Due to foggy conditions, LAPD had grounded their helicopters in the morning.
?This morning we did not fly because of that [weather],? said Rubenstein.

Bad weather and helicopters do not mix.

 

[Arnold]

Yeah, but his 13 year old daughter didn't deserve that. I don't know much about Kobe and nothing of the other 8 that died. Something terrible happened for that helio to come down, the most suspicious thing I've read is that there was fog and bad visibility:

[h=2]LAPD says weather conditions didn't meet standards for flying[/h]From CNN's Sarah Moon
Weather conditions on Sunday morning did not meet the Los Angeles Police Department?s minimum standards for flying, spokesman Josh Rubenstein confirmed to CNN.
Due to foggy conditions, LAPD had grounded their helicopters in the morning.
?This morning we did not fly because of that [weather],? said Rubenstein.

Bad weather and helicopters do not mix.

You're right it was a tragedy.

 

[REHH]

I guess auto rotation was not an option. Doesn't seem to work well anyways, especially not with all that weight.

 

[solidassears]

You're right it was a tragedy.

Oh man, after listening to that video and seeing what the condition were at the time, the pilot was lying when he said he was in VFR conditions at 1500', the METAR at the time said overcast at 1100'. It also seems obvious from the radar track that the guy was losing control of the heilo. I can tell you that flying IFR in a heilo is damn difficult it is at least two to three times more difficult that flying fixed wing IFR. IFR just means you are in the clouds or fog and can't see anything outside the aircraft. All you have in IFR Conditions is your instruments and you have to be glued to them. In a plane the aircraft is basically stable if you release the controls it will keep going and doing when it was before you released control; not so with a heilo, you let go and the damn thing will dart off in any direction; there is no telling what it will do or where it will go, heilos are very unstable and without constant input from the pilot will go out of control immediately. I fly heilos and fixed wing I have instrument, multi engine, rotorcraft and other ratings and I would never try what that pilot tried in those conditions. I'm sure he felt a lot of pressure to get the big boss where he wanted to go and in this case it cost all on board their lives. As far as autorotation, he was so close to the ground I doubt it could be done successfully, if appropriate. I don't think autorotation would have helped them, they were in the soup and trying to get under the overcast. He would have done better to admit he was now in IFR conditions and ask for an IFR clearance so he would climb and get more clearance from the ground. He probably felt he couldn't do that because he had lied and said he was VFR at 1500'.

 

[ordawg1]

Thoughts and prayers go out to the family -OD

 

[isabellamor]

The world mourns to his death, it feels surreal.
Death is inevitable, Mamba forever!

 

[solidassears]

Here is NTSB drone footage of the crash site. You can see where the helicopter hit hard, probably going about 150 mph, then the debris feild and finally where the fuselage came to rest and burned. Deviating... https://youtu.be/GvjzFWbJJxo

 

[ordawg1]

Hard to look at - I hope they went quickly .

 

[solidassears]

Hard to look at - I hope they went quickly .

I doubt they even knew what happened. When they hit, they were going about as fast as that helicopter can fly about 150 mph. You see the bare ground of the impact crater, then pieces of the machine strewn in a straight line for about 600' where what was left of the fuselage came to rest and where it burned. The impact would have killed everyone on board immediately. I've been to a few helicopter crashes and I've read the coroners report after autopsy. With a forward impact like that, the spinal cord is severed just below the head causing immediate loss of contagiousness and death within 60 seconds assuming no other trauma, but in such a case, the impact also causes the heart to separate from the aortas causing complete loss of blood supply so that those 60 seconds of life are not possible. The massive trauma of such an impact destroys so much that there is no possible way there was any suffering or even awareness of what was happening.

The two worst I have seen where not like this one with a high speed impact, of those, one was a slow in control off field landing where the fuel tank of the plane was ruptured and the three on board were emulated to the point they were all still in their seats leaning toward the door, just burnt to a crisp frozen in place. The second one was a helicopter that was hovering and lost the tail rotor and came spinning down to the airport ramp, it hit and the skids collapsed and the fuel tanks ruptured; it was a huge fireball. Fire fighting equipment was there in about 2 minutes, but that made no difference to the pilot, he was dead on impact from his heart separating and then his body burned up.

Anyway probably a lot more than you wanted to know, but the point is that they would not have known anything, just a normal flight in the fog and then it was lights out!

 

[Watson]

rot in hell rapist!

 

[Arnold]

rot in hell rapist!

Agreed, everyone forgot about the 19 year old girl he ass raped in a Colorado hotel back in 2003.

 

[solidassears]

Agreed, everyone forgot about the 19 year old girl he ass raped in a Colorado hotel back in 2003.

I didn't forget, but I also don't know for sure the truth of the whole mess. You can't trust the news or the people involved to tell the truth, so I don't judge, I would be very cautious if I was every around him, but I don't know if he really is a rapist or not.