TMZ reporting Kobe was killed in a helicopter crash in LA.
Other agencies referencing the TMZ report, LA Times already reported on the crash and working on confirming whether Bryant was on board.
LA Times running with it too:
You’ll never get me up in one of those. RIP.
TMZ is now reporting his 13 year old daughter was on board as well.
Former UH baseball player among those killed.
A jet pilot law partner once gave me great advice: “Helicopters are not aerodynamically sound. They should not fly. Never get in one.” I have not.
so sad.
Kobe was my favorite basketball player growing up this hits home. I was already shocked to read that Kobe had died but when I read that his daughter and 2 other girls were with him, it broke me. I can’t even begin to imagine what went through his mind as the helicopter fell to the ground and he presumably held his daughter. I’m reminded of Roy Halladay but with the added tragedy of other lives lost and that Roy had taken his life in his own hands. My heart goes out to the loved ones.
If something like this ever happened to a loved one of mine - where they have time to realize that certain death is upon them - these sorts of thoughts would haunt me forever.
Same here Waldo.
Chilling to contemplate.
Coach John Altobelli, his daughter Alyssa and his wife Keri also all died in the crash. Altobelli is a legend in California Juco baseball. Altobelli played college baseball at the U of H. His nephew (I think), Bo Altobelli once played for Texas Tech.
R.I.P. Coach, you were a great one.
Given the weather conditions and the communications between the helicopter and the 2 airports it’s beginning to sound like a case of serious pilot error.
I can’t imagine a single event doing more than this one will to slow down the maniacal frenzy with which so many of the super-rich lead their lives. As an example closer to home, Jerry Jones uses a helicopter as his local car in Dallas. “There but for grace go I.”
It’s a good thing for me that I don’t always say what I’m thinking.
1 Like
Gottagetthereitis killed them. They should not have been flying. LA PD grounded its helicopters. Hard to blame it all on the pilot; sounds like he became disoriented in the clouds and heavy fog and did not know where they or the mountains were.
I’ve practiced this in simulation - ie actually flying but wearing a hood that lets you see only your instruments. It’s probably one of the most intense, mentally exhausting things I’ve ever done. And this was in simulation, able to remove the hood at any time and with an instructor in the 2nd seat!!
I was nearly in this situation in real life, too, this time flying solo. I took off and was following my flight plan when the cloud started dropping lower and lower (contrary to the forecasts). I was pushed below my safety height, meaning that I had minimal vertical separation between me and the tallest thing around. I wasn’t close to it (a tv tower on top of a hill), but if I lost sight of the ground I could not be sure where I was.
So I turned around. I was forced lower and lower on my return and was breaking height restrictions the whole way. I joined the circuit at 500ft instead of 1,000ft, requested and was granted an expedited landing, and got it on the ground. Any one you walk away from…
Had I not aborted when I did…had I pushed on even for a couple of minutes where I was clear of the tv tower and had more height to play with…I likely would have been in the soup, flying blind and relying on math and a stopwatch to know where I was. If the wind had changed, I wouldn’t have had even that (no GPS in those days).
I say this not to vilify the unfortunate helicopter pilot. Those of you who fly or sail I’m sue will have similar stories of Mother Nature turning on you - seemingly with a singular purpose to end you - and you survived as much by luck than judgment. Commercial pilots have to weigh all of these things plus the pressure of getting people or things to where they want to be at the time they just have to be there.
There may have been pilot error, but that may have been as simple as deciding to give it a go.