Kobe Bryant dies

Imagine claiming to be a Christian while also defending a rapist.

Stay classy @GhostEcho.

I had to google Kobe's rapist situation. Appears a CNN guy did mention his rape accusation and of course got STOMPED ON by some people for bringing it up. But is he wrong for doing this? He is indeed being impartial and calling it like he sees it, like it or not. I just can't fault him for that.

https://www.foxnews.com/media/kobe-...r-crash-cnn-reporter-credible-rape-accusation

When rapists have died in the past, Wordforge has almost universally cheered.

He’s a pre Me Too rapist. So not actually a rapist.

Behave yourselves, goddamit.

Yabbut those were Hollywood elites and/or Democrats, and that was even worse

At any rate, it's s water under the bridge now and a family has lost their father and daughter/sister and that's awful, no matter who the person is.

also Kobe was never convicted anyway. Mike Tyson was convicted but a lot of people screamed "gold digger!" over that whole ordeal. Agree, water under the bridge now.

I heard an interview with an earwitness to the crash. Sounds like the copter was very low and went straight into the hillside, no indication of any mechanical problem. The fog in the area was so heavy, the earwitness couldn't see the helicopter when it passed 1-200 feet above him.

I'm betting the finding will be failure of the pilot to properly navigate in instrument conditions; controlled flight into terrain.

On the plus side, this probably means those on board had no sense a crash was imminent.

My friend works a local tower and she says fog like that sneaks up on you. By the time you see it, it's too late. And helicopters are harder to maneuver out of the way than planes. I'm not a pilot, don't know.
Edit: Something like the instruments don't show it. Same thing happened to Patsy Cline.

Always an advocate of letting the NTSB do their thing, but in this case I don't think they are going to find any surprises. I fly in and out of Burbank and Van Nuys a good bit. This area is the San Fernando Valley north of Los Angeles. It's bounded by the Hollywood Hills to the south, and there is terrain to the east and north, and some a little farther west where the helo actually impacted.

The fact that the pilot kept going lower and seeking VFR conditions is a tell that he wasn't instrument rated. If he was, all he had to do was pick up an IFR clearance from ATC, get above the terrain, and go his merry way in the weather. In many ways this echoes the JFK mishap- you've got a VFR rated pilot trying to cope with conditions that call for IFR flying. Helicopter pilots joke that "IFR" actually means "I follow roads." In fact, you can hear in the transmissions that this was the plan. However, the weather got a vote in this case and forced him into a box he couldn't get out of. ATC knew the conditions were deteriorating- you hear the repeated calls asking if he is in visual conditions. At the beginning you'll also note that he was forced to loiter around Burbank for about 15 minutes to stay clear of IFR traffic in and out of Burbank- by the time he got going again he was probably getting frustrated and impatient. Tragic, and totally avoidable. If you push the limits too hard in aviation, you can get an equal and opposite effect.

It's been reported that the helicopter was going 184 miles per hour and descending at 4000 feet per minute when it hit the terrain.

The latter raises an eyebrow. 4000 feet per minute is a very rapid descent. Many years ago when I was learning to fly, I made a descent at 2000 feet per minute to get under an airspace restriction and my instructor warned me that if I did that with passengers in the back seat, they might be throwing up.

So, that would indicate a problem to me, or it's a mistake.

We'll probably have to wait for the NTSB to unravel it, but I see only one of two real possibilities here:

1. CFIT: the pilot basically flew them into a hillside because he was too low to clear the prevailing terrain.

2. A JFK-style scenario where the pilot got himself in the goo, wasn't instrument rated, got vertigo or otherwise disoriented, and got into an unusual attitude resulting in departure from controlled flight, resulting in a spin-in and crash.

probably not 4K feet per minute especially with civilians (a 13 year old especially) on board. Anyway being an army ATC guy I will attest to Marso's comments that helicopters and poor visibility are not a good mix.

I haven't seen reports that the bird was tracked doing a 4000 FPM descent before impact, and it was below primary radar coverage to begin with, my guess is that any sort of firm data on that is going to have to wait until they have some FDR data to look at.

A pilot flying at 1400' would NEVER deliberately initiate a descent that steep- you've got about 20 seconds before hitting the ground if you do. If it comes out that the helo DID impact the ground with that rate of descent, it would equate to scenario 2 in my above post- an out-of-control scenario with the thing falling out of the sky.

The scattered nature of the debris field would indicate to a pretty high horizontal speed at impact, so I'm going to guess the 4000 fpm descent is a mistake or misreporting.

Thought I'd read that the pilot was well experienced and fully instrument rated?

Also, to clear up one possible point of confusion on that video:

The field elevation at Van Nuys is 800 FT, which means it's 800 feet above sea level. In aviation that is referred to as 'MSL' (mean sea level)

The controller at Van Nuys Helicopters reported the weather at 1100 overcast. That's 1100 feet above ground level, or AGL, because that is the way weather is reported in aviation worldwide.

The pilot reported he was VFR at 1400 ft. However, altitudes in the U.S. airspace system are reported in MSL. So the pilot was flying at 1400' above sea level, not 1400' AGL. So as he was crossing over Van Nuys, he was only 600 feet above the actual ground- a lot lower than the video would lead you to believe, if you are unfamiliar with how all this works.

I'm not sure, but the evidence doesn't point to it. If he was, there was NO REASON for him not to request an IFR clearance and just fly in the clouds away from the ground- unless the helo itself wasn't IFR equipped. That's the other caveat. Both pilot and machine have to be IFR capable.

This is why we have the NTSB investigators- all of this gets dissected and sorted out, and therein you find the real truth of what happened. All we monday-morning QB's can really do is guess and speculate.

The earwitness said he thought the helicopter was quite low (he said 100-200 feet) when it overflew the parking lot in Calabasas shortly before impact.

Viewing the impact site from the ground, it's clear the helicopter was quite low. Note the building in the foreground of this picture:



@Marso is right: all we can do is speculate; the NTSB will investigate.

I'm willing to bet the NTSB will determine Kobe wasn't traveling.

6/10.

And too soon!

Nah, he had a better shooting average than that. He almost always was on target, with the exception of yesterday morning.

Talk about "too soon" ISIS has already taken credit for shooting it down!

Koby some years ago on why he used helicopter to commute:

I'm somewhat bothered by the fact that the only we're really hearing about is Kobe Bryant, and to some extent his daughter. There were several other people on that helicopter. Two of the other seven were also girls in their teens. Their deaths are not any less tragic or less important that Bryant and his daughter.

I agree that their deaths are equally tragic, but this story is of interest to most (and therefore "worthy" of ongoing attention) because a prominent person was involved.

Had Kobe and his daughter not been on that helicopter, we probably wouldn't still be talking about it. Just like we don't with most every other helicopter crash.

That's true, and that's probably the only reason we've heard about it.

But there's also something else. I'm wondering if Kobe may have caused the crash. Some of the witnesses to the crash have reported not hearing the engines before the crash. Love did have, at least on one occasion of turning off the engines on his helicopter to play a trick on a passenger. If that's true, then fuck him.

Here's a link to the story of him turning the engines off on another flight.

Article says Bryant had the pilot do it as a gag.

I doubt very seriously that the pilot would consent to that (or that Kobe would even ask for that) at low altitude in very tenuous VFR conditions.