A Sikorsky S-76B Helicopter (N72EX) performing flight from Santa Ana KSNA
was transitioning to the west of Van Nuys KVNY along the 101 Freeway in very marginal weather when suddenly crashed in the area of Calabasas.
AUDIO SOURCE: www.liveatc.net
source
This post will be edited with updates.
Leave your condolences to families and friends of all those who perished. RIP.
This video shows facts on the accident. Please, do not speculate about the causes or try to look for responsibles. Thank you.
This is all of the recordings of Kobe Bryant helicopter crash. So sad to see him pass away in this :((
This was Kobe’s heli btw
As soon as you here “X-ray ident” it gets ugly for the passengers
Me personally ,i feel like the pilot and the flight guidance worker were not on the same page(s)
Regardless let this be a lesson learned
Don’t fly in FOG
Rip Kobe Bryant
Could that controller talk any quicker ?
4:40 -pilot now tells VanNuys he wants to go to the 101..fr/ the 118. Why not cont on the 118 to Camarillo airport, to land? Didnt know the fog danger on 101W? Then slams u turn & down! It sputtered? Sabotage? Bk boxes shld be mandatory now in heli's. RIP to all.
OK, Let’s see what we have here, let’s see what we have; “I” would’ve opened an IFR Flight Plan w/KSNA FSS via SLI-VOR (115.7) to CMA-VOR (115.8)-Direct, with Squawk-Code/Bearing/Altitude/& Airspeed assigned by SoCal App/Dep (TRACON). Straight-Line: No BS sightseeing through Downtown LA/CONGESTED San Fernando Valley Basin, w/EXTREMELY DETERIORATING IMC (THICK fog). “If” I lost my job, so damn be it; 9-lives saved Vs. 9-toes tagged, for fuck sake!!!
It must be horror when the helicopter/planes vanish in the radar….
rip kobe and all
Please make my video go viral I will get on the new and tell the world. Kobe was killed. This man killed Kobe. He said he was going up 4,000 feet to get out the clouds. And he stopped at 2,300 feet and entered a dive. Till he hit the ground. Facts. No engine failure . Helicopters dont just dive alone. Ether The pilot crashed them on purpose or he might have had a heart attack. Or the plan was controlled off sight by remote and that person killed him. The pilot killed Kobe. Why I dont know. They claim the reason for the crash is unknown . Meaning nothing wrong with the helicopter. It was controlled off sight. Or he did it. Period. They told the pilot he was to low for flight following. And then he took a dive. Why would you dive when being told you to low already. Why climb a little first. https://youtu.be/6IGVQ-xn0as. https://youtu.be/BCLNJLjitSs
Could this have been a terrorist attack?
I WANT TO SEE WEATHER RADAR LIVE TIME
Kobe Bryant giving this guy all these views and $$$$. Mamba mentaility even while dead. lmao
Frank Borman said "A superior pilot uses his superior judgment to avoid situations which require the use of his superior skill."
Frank ought to know, since he was the first man to command a flight to the moon.
van nuy tower got that sexy voice
Man, I wonder why the pilot went radio silent. So tragic.
That delay was a sign. He should of just landed at Burbank airport-too risky with fog
What if they ran out of fuel?
Why it says radar contact lost as it is not radar data but flight data from ADS-B?
so many wanna be experts in this comment section.
1. you people don't know shit about what caused this.
2. hindsight is 20/20 and it doesn't help to say what they should have done. it's too late for that unfortunately.
I like how it's too danherous to fly yet there's more aircraft to follow than this air traffic guy can handle
Kobes copter
The most important reminder to us Kobe Fans is the fact that Kobe was in Church at 7:00 a.m. Pacific Time last Sunday and had the privilege to get right with God, confess his sins and be saved. Not knowing he would breathe his last breath just hours later. May God comfort every person's family aboard that helicopter and may we NOT sit in judgement or question the inevitable in this situation. God has the first and last word on everything!
I heard the ‘copter was also traveling at 178MPH
Please watch link of helicopter crash
https://youtu.be/BhtNm1IGwQc
Everybody is saying that the pilot is the guilty one, but Kobe could have said too: no, sorry, the weather is too bad to fly, we will take a car. The passengers were all Kobe's guests so he was also in charge, period. He could have cancelled the flight back too… But saving some minutes was more important to him… And that is the result
Has nobody considered that the pilot experienced a medical emergency?
Loss of consciousness? Seizure? Heart attack?
How he crashed (In my opinion)
he was flying too slow and low to avoid the cloud ceiling aka skud running, then he went blind in fog. He tried to fly above the fog but he probably hit the clouds which made him disoriented. He instantly went from visual VFR to IMC. Am I banking left? Am I flying straight? Am I climbing? Am I falling? He doesn’t know because he’s blind. At that point he has to switch to instrument flying which he probably wasn’t very familiar with. He could have been IFR certified but who knows if he was current and or practicing in real flights. Maybe he panicked. High profile passenger and kids onboard so he’s under a lot of pressure now and he can’t see anything. So my guess is he accelerated down thinking he was diving out of the clouds toward the freeway, but in reality he was flying down and left into the mountain. No terrain awareness system HTAWS but who knows if that would have helped. I don’t think it was Controlled flight into terrain CFIT. He was flying too erratic. No evidence yet just my speculation
PATCO 1981
Good to see that you avoided using a clickbait title. A very informative video.
Pilot wasn’t instrument rated, pretty open and shut case of him skud running and getting gipped.
The flight path is out of sync with the audio. The pilot made the transition on to the 101 without incident. He was on course for a good deal of time when completely inexplicably the chopper made a wide left banking turn and nose dived at 2000 fpm. NTSB said it was a high velocity impact. This thing fell out of the sky. Poor visibility does not justify such a maneuver. PERIOD. The aircraft suffered some kind of electrical or mechanical failures. No distress call. Nothing. 20 year instrument-rated instructor veteran pilot. Witnesses said the helicopter was making struggling engine sounds in the air. This push to blame the pilot seems premature at best. I've tested his flight on a simulator in similar weather conditions. Visibility was most definitely a factor. But the last moment of his flight path is completely bizarre and absolutely cannot be attributed to poor visibility. Left banking nose dive at 2000 fpm leaving an established flight path on the 101 freeway? Something happened to the chopper. Blaming this on pilot error, and so soon, is utter nonsense.
I didn't hear any distress in the pilots voice or anything that hints "it's to foggy and I can't see a damn thing".
Everything sounded normal to my untrained "areodymanic" ears.
I guess this is a good time to DOUBT the official reports
In the past "10 years" there have been 331 deaths from helicopter crashes. But just in 2019 there was 37,443 deaths from car crashes. This is only in the US.
Kobe's helicopter is BLACK. Where's THAT one?
I learned some aviation stuffs because of this accident… Here's the link if you're interested what could have possibly happened to the pilot why he lost control. https://youtu.be/n1xH0NCPgTg
This is not a conclusion, just for learning random stuff.. RIP to all of them.
both burbank and van nuys advised him to follow 118 westbound… and he still chose 101. looking at the map 118 has way less high terrain and had better weather that day… also it kind of feels like socal wasn't even aware he's SVFR
. NTSB will conclude CFIT and pilot error, no additional data due to lack of black boxes. so sad and preventable
in 10 different ways
Helicopters and their pilots must be flying on without holding and circling on bad weather to avoid troubles and make Helicopter under controlled . RIP guys
Here is an analysis of the ADSB data from flightradar24.com of this flight combined with ground elevation data from digital elevation model.
Accompanying raw data, maps, graphs 3D views are here:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/1hhg1s7tsabkduw/AABHu3eQJ9UPLnsKl2PUHkZNa?dl=0
Note the speed data is ground speed from the ADSB GPS data. Starting at the final 3 minutes of the flight, the helicopter was following US-101 / Ventura freeway to the west and had slowed approaching a narrowing and rising in the terrain at Calabasas, from around 142 kt to 130 kt ground speed. The altitude had been stable between 1200 and 1250 ft.
The 101 turns from W to SW at Brents Junction with rising terrain directly ahead at 1437 ft before starting the left-turn. On commencing the left turn the helicopter also begins climbing at an average rate of 1470 fpm sustained over 4 data points spanning 36 seconds, gaining 875 ft. At the 3rd to last data point, the maximum reported altitude is 2125ft which is 465ft above the nearest high terrain approximately 1NM away in the direction of flight. The 2nd to last data point shows a slight decent of 75ft over 8 s but with the left turn continuing and increasing (at 5.5 deg/sec). The final data point shows altitude 1700 ft and since the previous point a decent at 3500fpm turning left at 7 deg/sec. The reported crash site is a further 500 ft lower at 1100ft altitude.
A couple of observations stand out
(1) Calculating the flight height above ground level (ref to USGS NED1 digital elevation model) taking 233 of the 250 available altitude reports (ignoring the first 90 seconds of flight until 500ft AGL achieved after liftoff), some observation about the flight height can be made : Average height AGL was 370ft, minimum 140ft AGL. 20% of the reports were below 300ft AGL (this is not explicitly outside the regulations for a helicopter, irrespective of SVFR conditions). This isn’t a criticism on the height flown, but does point to the ceiling at the time – presumably this low height AGL was maintained in order to remain (just) clear of the cloud above.
(2) Just west of Mureau Road overpass where the rising 101 freeway reaches a maximum elevation of 1120 ft, the helicopter is at 1250 alt ft : 140 ft above the ground while traveling at 130Kt. Around the same location there is rising terrain on both sides with same-altitude ground briefly within 475 ft on both sides (ref to USGS topo map).
(3) About 36 seconds later on approaching the 45 degree left-turn at Brents Junction the turn and ascent begin at the same time – I wonder if the pilot either inadvertently flew into cloud, or saw an unavoidable cloud bank further ahead, and elected to climb rapidly rather than (or unable to) slow down. Perhaps the decision was made to fly into the cloud knowing there was higher terrain nearby to avoid.
(4) The data shows that after climbing for approximately 36 seconds to almost 500ft above any nearby terrain, and leveling off (but maintaining a left turn), either control was lost or some other factor caused the rapid decent to the crash site.
Trevor Wellington
PPL fixed wing; engineer
when u realize,it was kobe on the flight :(((((((((((((((
4:03 turn on subtitles…
VNY TWR almost put me to sleep… such a calming voice. Condolences to the family and friends of those that perished.
Now ur clip is caught on Business Insider. Nice job man.
1:08 the pilot sounds so dejected they have him holding