Kobe Bryant chopper crash

[co-joe]

Could a 4000'/min descent be the result of an abrupt 1400'/min pull up from loss of orientation causing the main rotor to contact the tail mast? Is that a thing in the S76?

[altiplano]

I feel for the Pilots and their families... I hope the Bryant estate looks after their future too.

I would suggest you have that backwards. The Bryant family put their lives in the hands of a professional pilot. Now they're dead.

Let's give the man that killed daddy a Christmas bonus?

You need to visit the book off after a crisis thread as this accident has hit your thinking rather hard.

We don't know what caused this accident, and when I made that post the media was in a frenzy and wasn't even acknowledging that other people had lost their lives, that other families were affected.

It was all "Our thoughts and prayers are with Kobe's family and friends"...

What about everyone else?

What if it was an airliner with 200 on board that killed Kobe? @#$! acknowledging the other 199 regular people who's families are affected? Kobe is the only story that needs your thoughts and prayers?

9 people dead but reading most of the press stories at the time you'd think Kobe was flying the machine by himself...

[telex]

I would suggest you have that backwards. The Bryant family put their lives in the hands of a professional pilot. Now they're dead.

Let's give the man that killed daddy a Christmas bonus?

You need to visit the book off after a crisis thread as this accident has hit your thinking rather hard.

We don't know what caused this accident, and when I made that post the media was in a frenzy and wasn't even acknowledging that other people had lost their lives, that other families were affected.

It was all "Our thoughts and prayers are with Kobe's family and friends"...

What about everyone else?

What if it was an airliner with 200 on board that killed Kobe? @#$! acknowledging the other 199 regular people who's families are affected? Kobe is the only story that needs your thoughts and prayers?

9 people dead but reading most of the press stories at the time you'd think Kobe was flying the machine by himself...

I hope your estate has provisions for passengers that might lose their lives while you are at the controls of an ill fated flight.

[altiplano]

Let's give the man that killed daddy a Christmas bonus?

You need to visit the book off after a crisis thread as this accident has hit your thinking rather hard.

We don't know what caused this accident, and when I made that post the media was in a frenzy and wasn't even acknowledging that other people had lost their lives, that other families were affected.

It was all "Our thoughts and prayers are with Kobe's family and friends"...

What about everyone else?

What if it was an airliner with 200 on board that killed Kobe? @#$! acknowledging the other 199 regular people who's families are affected? Kobe is the only story that needs your thoughts and prayers?

9 people dead but reading most of the press stories at the time you'd think Kobe was flying the machine by himself...

I hope your estate has provisions for passengers that might lose their lives while you are at the controls of an ill fated flight.

You're out of line. Have a good one.

[MOAB]

Could a 4000'/min descent be the result of an abrupt 1400'/min pull up from loss of orientation causing the main rotor to contact the tail mast? Is that a thing in the S76?

I haven't seen the airspeed indicated when it did the 1400'/min climb, but a 76 could do that climb easily without much more than aft cyclic input at normal cruise speed.

I don't know how fast you would have to pull or if it's even possible to make the rotor contact anywhere aft of the hub in a 76, but my guess is you'd be upside down or make it loop if you tried.

More than likely it's a IIMC and disorientation, but whatever the cause is its sad that it couldn't have been avoided.

[telex]

We don't know what caused this accident, and when I made that post the media was in a frenzy and wasn't even acknowledging that other people had lost their lives, that other families were affected.

It was all "Our thoughts and prayers are with Kobe's family and friends"...

What about everyone else?

What if it was an airliner with 200 on board that killed Kobe? @#$! acknowledging the other 199 regular people who's families are affected? Kobe is the only story that needs your thoughts and prayers?

9 people dead but reading most of the press stories at the time you'd think Kobe was flying the machine by himself...

I hope your estate has provisions for passengers that might lose their lives while you are at the controls of an ill fated flight.

You're out of line. Have a good one.

I will have a good one. Congratulations on your status as a self appointed moderator now.

I'll take comfort in the fact that you find value in Kobe's estate if not the man.

[altiplano]

What are you taking about?

Rhetorical question... You're losing it.

[boeingboy]

I haven't seen the airspeed indicated when it did the 1400'/min climb, but a 76 could do that climb easily without much more than aft cyclic input at normal cruise speed.

Looking at what ADSB info is available at this time - it appears to be in the 140kt area

[cncpc]

There must have been alot of pressure to get to the sports facility instead of getting a clearance and climbing, doing an approach to Van Nuys and calling a limo...

Or Camarillo. There was some reason he couldn't go IFR. No idea what it was.

[Jet Jockey]

What about the possibility of a medical problem with the pilot?

At that level of equipment, surely paying for two pilots is a good insurance policy.

[CFR]

While we're holding empathetic thoughts for Mr Bryant and his daughter and their family, I'm sure we are also thinking of the families of the other seven victims, and, all of the emergency services personnel who arrived to find the sad scene, and, the ATC people who realized that a pilot they had just been talking to has now died, and, the people who took pride in the maintenance of the helicopter, which is now a debris trail, and, the staff of the helicopter operator company. And... the reality, that many of these people now have to relive this sad event, in being interviewed, having to write reports, and produce documentation for examination.

The sadness extends, to varying degrees, far beyond the people who were aboard the helicopter...

Having worked on an aircraft that crashed a few weeks later killing both on board, I must thank you for pointing out the true extent of a tragedy of this nature. My thoughts are with those left behind!

[DanWEC]

NTSB confirmed today that the chopper actually did not have TAWS.
My earlier reading led me to beleive almost all the 76's had it, and given this was supposed to be a top trim model I assumed it did. Maybe inop.

[boeingboy]

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeremyboga ... 0f354b26ea

Very interesting if true....
Apparently the pilot was IFR certified - but the company is VFR only.

[karmutzen]

Correct, operator was 135 VFR only. Pilot had 1200 on that aircraft and over 8000 total. You can hear him on ATC as pretty smooth and experienced. We don’t have flight-following here in Canada but it is a big deal in the US to help with traffic avoidance, especially in the LA Basin.

The speed is puzzling, you’d think low and slow, with the gear down so the airspeed switch isn’t blaring. I wonder if his plan all along was to pop up if things got ugly. Don’t think he had EGPWS but he had an iPad with Foreflight. He got up as high as 2300’ and turn south down valley towards Malibu. Called ATC that he was popping up. Then lost it and dove in a left turn ‘way beyond Vne and impacted the ground at 1080’. Not CFIT. EGPWS would have made no difference. Pop up, file a NASA report, approach and VFR transition at Camarillo.

So what happened after the turn south and climb to 2300’? He was an instructor and IFR instructor. Lots of time on aircraft but did he use the automation correctly? Did he couple 2 cue or 3? Was he holding airspeed or was it bleeding off until the APs kicked off?

[boeingboy]

Sure - he was an instructor and an experienced pilot - but, when did he last fly actual IFR? I'll bet it was a while ago, also - If the company is VFR only....chances are he had zero IFR time in the 76. At least recently.

Doing IFR at 90kts in an R22 is a lot different than suddenly ending up in the soup, low level, at 160kts in an S-76. Maybe he just got behind the machine. Too many unknowns and not enough facts right now...but it certainly seems like the weather is an increasingly large factor.

I get the reasoning mentioned in the article about being VFR only company - but if that's the case then they should have better standards than allowing SVFR scudrunning.

SVFR may have it's place, but you need to be prepared to call it off and not push it. Droning around trying to stay VFR in mountainous terrain with crap weather is just an accident looking for a place to happen.

[MUSKEG]

I’m wondering with the rate of decent and the fact he missed clearing the top of the hill by 20-30 feet If he might have seen a hole to go through and missed the pull out due to high rate of decent.

[karmutzen]

There were little hills (undulating terrain) all around the bottom, he hit 20’ below the top of one in a near vertical dive, left bank, doing over 200 mph. The tops of the valley peaks were about 2200’. That whole 20’ below comment from the NTSB is deceiving. He had made it up high enough to be out of CFIT danger. The dive wasn’t controlled. 60-90 knots is a good speed to follow a freeway at 300-500’, normal cruise is 130-135. Vne is 155.

BTW, his VFR limits in G airspace below 1200’ (US, remember) is 1/2 mile and clear of cloud. Same as Canada with an ops spec. Foggy smoggy LA that kind of flying is routine, you follow freeways. There are those pesky IFR airports where you need SVFR to transit their zone when the viz drops below 3 miles. It was 2 and a half at Van Nuys. Camarillo was good VFR.

You can call it .. running disparagingly but perfectly legal and safe for most professional helicopter pilots. And efficient.

[boeingboy]

don't get me wrong - I said SVFR has it's place... Like hazy skies over the I-5 in downtown LA.

But he wasn't over downtown LA. His route took him though the mountains (or hills or whatever you want to label them) That were socked in with cloud. He veered away from the freeway and climbed into the cloud (apparently). According to witnesses - they could hear him but didn't see him until he broke out of the cloud - out of control. Did the cloud go right down to the freeway in his path and he tried to find another way around? To me - that is .. running, and it's that kind of thing that is dangerous.

The company was not authorized to fly IFR - so was the machine maintained IFR legal? Even if it was - it was poor decision making to continue even if trying to transition to IFR.

Again, I'm just theorizing based on very little facts - there are too many questions right now and not enough answers.

[cncpc]

No current 76 time, I also don't know what kind of autopilot they had in that bmodel, that can make a difference too.

unless you're suddenly trying to avoid something.

That is one scenario we discussed yesterday. However I think the rapid rise/fall is all loss of control, they may have hit something first.

Unless there were multiple instrument failures, I don't see why they wouldn't have gone ifr at that point.

Mmmmmm, interesting. Which makes me think when the pilot was denied initial clearance through the class c control zone when he requested a special vfr transition and then was put in a hold for 15 minutes, you would think that's when they would get the pop-up IFR clearance.

K

He didn't want IFR because he wouldn't have been able to land at the sports facility.

They were holding outside of the zone for other traffic, including a missed approach and transitioned just fine.

He cut across van nuys to pick up the highway, this was straight up scudrunning and the pilot made a terrible choice to continue.

I'd like to see the pilot record, that may shed some more light on the pilots ifr experience.

I think there is a PIREP near to there around that time which has tops at 2000 feet, sunny and 30 miles vis on top. There is no reason, absent mechanical, for him to have an urgency to get on the ground somewhere he wasn't going. He was legal VFR on top, although probably illegal getting on top, and 300 feet above the deck.

All this turning and rapid descent is not inconsistent with a tail rotor problem.

It is odd that in the one wider area video I've seen, there is a straight debris trail from impact to the major cabin and tunnel bit, with paper scattered but not burned. But the vertical fin is not on that path. It appears to be abeam the crater, not in front of it. And a fair bit off the wreckage trail.

This is the cockpit when it was operated by the State of Illinois. It would be informative to know what was still there on that day, and what had been added, and what was US.

olde fcockpit.jpg (125.71 KiB) Viewed 3516 times

[Heliian]

No current 76 time, I also don't know what kind of autopilot they had in that bmodel, that can make a difference too.

unless you're suddenly trying to avoid something.

That is one scenario we discussed yesterday. However I think the rapid rise/fall is all loss of control, they may have hit something first.

Mmmmmm, interesting. Which makes me think when the pilot was denied initial clearance through the class c control zone when he requested a special vfr transition and then was put in a hold for 15 minutes, you would think that's when they would get the pop-up IFR clearance.

K

He didn't want IFR because he wouldn't have been able to land at the sports facility.

They were holding outside of the zone for other traffic, including a missed approach and transitioned just fine.

He cut across van nuys to pick up the highway, this was straight up scudrunning and the pilot made a terrible choice to continue.

I'd like to see the pilot record, that may shed some more light on the pilots ifr experience.

I think there is a PIREP near to there around that time which has tops at 2000 feet, sunny and 30 miles vis on top. There is no reason, absent mechanical, for him to have an urgency to get on the ground somewhere he wasn't going. He was legal VFR on top, although probably illegal getting on top, and 300 feet above the deck.

All this turning and rapid descent is not inconsistent with a tail rotor problem.

It is odd that in the one wider area video I've seen, there is a straight debris trail from impact to the major cabin and tunnel bit, with paper scattered but not burned. But the vertical fin is not on that path. It appears to be abeam the crater, not in front of it. And a fair bit off the wreckage trail.

This is the cockpit when it was operated by the State of Illinois. It would be informative to know what was still there on that day, and what had been added, and what was US.

olde fcockpit.jpg

Now that we know that the aircraft and company and presumably the pilot did not have any current IFR certification or training, it solidifies the hypothesis that the pilot went vfr into imc and lost control, as happens with most vfr into imc situations. The aircraft was speeding and under power when it impacted the hillside and from all accounts intact. Wreckage positioning and contents scattered around would be normal for such a high energy impact.

If your company does only VFR work then you are only going to maintain the equipment necessary for VFR flight. The IFR equipment may even have been removed.