CA - Kobe Bryant, 41, daughter GiGi, 13, & 7 others die in helicopter crash, Calabasas, 26 Jan 2020

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mickey2942 said:
Kobe Bryant was a great basketball player, all around nice guy.

Okay. Does his death merit as much time on the news, and media presence/attention as it is getting? Why has this affected so many people?
Click to expand...
mickey2942 said:
Kobe Bryant was a great basketball player, all around nice guy.

Okay. Does his death merit as much time on the news, and media presence/attention as it is getting? Why has this affected so many people?
Click to expand...
T
mickey2942 said:
Kobe Bryant was a great basketball player, all around nice guy.

Okay. Does his death merit as much time on the news, and media presence/attention as it is getting? Why has this affected so many people?
Click to expand...
the tragedy surrounding it I believe & all the different families
 
Presser:
It was a high velocity impact. Steep decent at high speed.
This helicopter did not have a -low terrain warning - system
The pilot had an iPad . They found a cellphone & an iPad .
Not sure if it belongs to the pilot.
They located all the significant components . IOW, Helicopter impacted in one piece .
 
mickey2942 said:
Kobe Bryant was a great basketball player, all around nice guy.

Okay. Does his death merit as much time on the news, and media presence/attention as it is getting? Why has this affected so many people?
Click to expand...
Just the fact he died so young and so shockingly suddenly, and with his 13 year old daughter and 7 others in a horrific fashion makes it newsworthy. A celebrity like, Kobe, especially one in the world of sports, is well known all over the world. He grew up in Philly and impressed in high school with his athletic talents. Just getting into the NBA right out of high school is quite an accomplishment. 20 years on the same team in LA is as well.

Also, his father was famous as an NBA player as well and finished his career in Italy, where Kobe lived as a child. He had connections all over the world, it seems.

I've discovered so much more about him just by listening to all the news since his death, other than what I remember from seeing him play B-Ball in Philly. He seems to have been quite a remarkable person. He continued to give back to his communities, to his high school, to his children and their sports, to fans and teammates. So many people know him personally or at least know of him. I can't imagine any reason why his death wouldn't affect a ton of people.
 
mickey2942 said:
Kobe Bryant was a great basketball player, all around nice guy.

Okay. Does his death merit as much time on the news, and media presence/attention as it is getting? Why has this affected so many people?
Click to expand...

At least here in America, he is considered one of the greatest athletes of all time. This is a man who not only was one of the basketball greats, he is also an Academy Award winner, an Olympic gold medalist, well respected for his business ventures, and was working on a children's book series (in addition to already having a memoir(ish) book out). His opinions held a lot of weight - just last week he was in the news for declaring that some women in the WNBA were good enough and tough enough to play alongside men in the NBA - an opinion that is extremely controversial but gave the sports world a pause because specifically it was him who said it.
He was a well-rounded man and incredibly famous here.

And yes, of course...the the tragic way he died is naturally going to generate more interest. He was only 41, which is very, very young nowadays. He still had a lot of life ahead of him. More people feel invested when the learn the circumstances, how not only his daughter died and he is leaving behind a whole (still young, his youngest daughter only 6 months old!) family, but also that many other people, including other children, died alongside him.

I went out to dinner last night and the hot topic was Kobe Bryant. These are not people who are super into sports or basketball. But they still had high respect for Kobe. Some of my fellow diners were on the verge of tears.
He had a high cultural impact and probably will for a long time.
 
I missed it. Did they say anything about them feeling the impact, suffering?
 
I listened to the presser and nobody has speculated that maybe the pilot had a medical condition. Heart attack? Stroke? I mean, they basically said the helo nosedived down going 2000ft/min at 160MPH.
Just my thoughts
 
Jsizzle said:
I listened to the presser and nobody has speculated that maybe the pilot had a medical condition. Heart attack? Stroke? I mean, they basically said the helo nosedived down going 2000ft/min at 160MPH.
Just my thoughts
Click to expand...

I still need to listen to the latest presser but I think with the exception of something like an aneurysm that can be immediate and without warning, I believe any medical condition would have presented itself with enough time that ATC would have heard or been aware of any distress. It seems that the time between pilot's last transmission and impact was just minutes apart. MOO

ETA: After listening to presser, I definitely do not believe there was a medical episode by the pilot.

The pilot's last contact with ATC provided the helicopter was at about 2,200 elevation, and the hillside impact was at about 1,080. The rate of descent was determined as 2,000 ft per minute. I believe the impact was at high speed and in the blink of an eye. I don't think the rapid descent would have been recoverable by the pilot. MOO
 
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Jsizzle said:
I listened to the presser and nobody has speculated that maybe the pilot had a medical condition. Heart attack? Stroke? I mean, they basically said the helo nosedived down going 2000ft/min at 160MPH.
Just my thoughts
Click to expand...

I won't be surprised if he had a sudden, massive heart attack or stroke. From what's been said in articles and the presser, he descended left very fast. To me, that sounds like he wasn't in control. It's also been said that someone heard noises like it wasn't running right before they heard the crash.

He was an exceptional pilot. He had been Kobe's pilot for a few years and had driven from point A to point B many, many times. From what I'm hearing this also is not the 1st time he's driven in LA fog.

One question I have is did he normally follow the same land Mark's in fog each time or did this route change?

As for LE grounding their copters, they did not have the same type of copter. Kobe's was rated for this type of flying; so that can't even be compared IMO
 
Luna20 said:
I missed it. Did they say anything about them feeling the impact, suffering?
Click to expand...

BeachSky said:
No
NTSB Jennifer Homendy headed up the CA boat fire pressers.
She is very thorough & respectful IMO.
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I think you can take comfort that the rapid descent at 2000 ft/min to the hillside impact at about 1080 ft was most likely less than a minute. MOO
 
Well done Philly.

Philadelphia 76ers pay tribute to Kobe Bryant during Tuesday's game


His framed No. 33 Aces jersey was displayed at midcourt and the Sixers held a 33-second moment of silence of Bryant and the other eight victims in Sunday's crash. The Sixers rang a bell nine times and shone nine lights on the court during the solemn remembrance. The Sixers skipped pregame introductions for both teams and instead played a video of Bryant's last introduction in Philadelphia in a December 2015 game and images of him with Allen Iverson and Julius Erving.
 
Jsizzle said:
I listened to the presser and nobody has speculated that maybe the pilot had a medical condition. Heart attack? Stroke? I mean, they basically said the helo nosedived down going 2000ft/min at 160MPH.
Just my thoughts
Click to expand...

I don't feel that the pilot suffered a medical condition and if he clipped one of his rotors on the side of the hill, which does seem to show as a rather large gouge above the fuselage, it would force that hard left turn/spin that some have mentioned. If you look above the fuselage in the pictures shown by the media, you'll see debris from the rotor in that area.

Helicopter pilots are trained to compensate for damaged rotors but in this case, it looks like all the rotors were lost and he wouldn't have had the time, elevation or ability to exercise emergency procedures.

I have two pilots in my family and after Kennedy's plane crash, we had discussion about flying without instrumentation in fog and I was told it feels like vertigo. Because they have no visual horizon, a pilot can't tell if the aircraft is still horizontal and pilots, much like drivers in a snow storm, have a tendency to pull or drag a bit one way or another and there is always the feeling that they are spinning.
 
margarita25 said:
Sorry if repost:

“The crash occurred about 1,085 feet above sea level, missing the top of the hill by 20 to 30 feet, investigators said.”

Kobe Bryant: Helicopter carrying NBA star and 8 others was 20 to 30 feet from clearing a hilltop when it crashed, investigators say - CNN
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Thanks for the article. The copter was already coming down before it crashed the tail into the mountain according to the article

As federal investigators wrapped up operations at the crash site, the NTSB's Jennifer Homendy said preliminary information suggests the helicopter descended rapidly and was likely in one piece before it slammed into the hill.
"The descent rate for the helicopter was over 2,000 feet a minute, so we know that this was a high energy impact crash," Homendy said. "This is a pretty steep descent at high speed. So it wouldn't be a normal landing speed."
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Ive learned so much more about him after his death. Obviously there is a lot being reported on his deceased daughter Gigi. I haven’t though come across much info on his eldest daughter, in general. Volleyball is referenced in regards to being her favored sport. Does anyone know more about her, school, etc? I’m just hoping that she will be a good support to her Mom and 2 sisters as they each grieve together.
 
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