All of you have heard by now of the helicopter crash on Sunday, January 26th that killed basketball star, Kobe Bryant. All of you know that it happened on a day when the weather in Los Angeles, California was very bad.
Right now, two days after the accident, we know very little. After an accident, the initial reports are almost always wrong. At first the news media, in their rush to get the story out, incorrectly reported the number of people on the helicopter. Other reports indicated that the helicopter was on fire, its engines were "sputtering" or the famous, "it was spiraling out of control" before crashing. All of that is wrong.
Here's the sequence of events: Kobe and some friends were headed from Santa Barbara, California to his athletic camp known as the Mamba Sports Academy in the town of Camarillo. The weather surely was "bad" that morning, but not so bad that it warranted canceling the flight. Airports along the way were reporting "bad-but-okay" weather...for a helicopter. However, hysterical news reports said that the weather was "extremely poor" or some such nonsense. It wasn't.
What may be extremely poor weather for an airplane is not necessarily so for a helicopter. See, we helicopters can safely and legally slow down and fly low when the cloud ceiling and forward visibility are reduced. Airplanes cannot do this. What is required of us helicopter pilots is that we retain forward visibility...in other words, stay "clear of clouds" as we call it, and fly at a speed that allows us to not hit anything. It may sound absurd, but helicopters are unique aircraft with awesome capabilities.
Anyway, Kobe's pilot - who had flown this same route many times before - decided that the weather was sufficiently good to attempt the flight. He did not need any special permission to do so; we have that freedom here in the United States. Because of the low cloud ceilings, the pilot elected to say in the numerous valleys that make up the "L.A. Basin." He was very experienced, and he knew the area well. Only trouble was that by choosing this route, it meant that Burbank and Van Nuys Airports were in his way.
When he got further up the road (so to speak), the Burbank Airport was reporting a cloud ceiling of 1,100 feet and a visibility of two-and-one-half miles. Again, not horrible weather by helicopter pilot standards.
But because the visibility was less than three miles, this rendered the zone around the airport "IFR." This means that pilots need an Instrument flight plan to operate in the area. Operating VFR was allowed by exception, but pilots need to ask for what we call a "Special VFR" clearance. This is perfectly routine and it happens all the time at airports all across the country. However! Air Traffic Control gives priority to aircraft on IFR flight plans. VFR aircraft (such as Kobe's helicopter) get lower priority. In this case, the Tower controller at Burbank told Kobe's pilot to hold outside of the area until there was a "slot" or break in the traffic sufficient to let him through.
When traffic finally permitted, the Burbank controller cleared Kobe's helicopter into their zone. They were instructed to fly up Interstate 5 to the east of Burbank Airport, then loop north around both Burbank and Van Nuys Airport before coming back down south to intercept Highway 101 westbound, which would lead them right to Camarillo. That was the plan, anyway.
After Kobe's helicopter cleared out of the Van Nuys Airport zone, the pilot did pick up Highway 101 and began following it. However, something happened. Suddenly, the helicopter began a left turn. Perhaps the pilot was attempting a course reversal to go back to Van Nuys. Whatever the case, witnesses on the ground said that the helicopter flew over them, heard but not seen because he was in the clouds above. Soon afterward, they heard the impact on a nearby hill.
Right now, it appears that Kobe's pilot inadvertently flew into either a cloud or a fog bank, violating the imperative to not do that. If I had to make an educated guess, it would be that in his left-turn attempt to reverse course and head back to Van Nuys, the pilot probably did not realize that he was turning right into a mountain that was higher than the altitude at which he was flying. He wouldn't be the first pilot to make a mistake like that. We all saw the tragic results of this latest one.
That's basically all we know right now. There are a hundred questions that come up. Almost none of them are answerable. The NTSB is, obviously, on the case of this very high-profile accident. Hopefully they'll be able to shed some light on what went wrong and how it happened. When more information comes out, I'll provide it here.
Who Am I?
- Bob Barbanes:
- A nobody; a nitwit; a pilot; a motorcyclist; a raconteur; a lover...of life - who loves to laugh, who tries to not take myself (or anything) too seriously...just a normal guy who knows his place in the universe by being in touch with my spiritual side. What more is there?
4 comments:
Thanks for the explanation. On a more personal level, this event sort of goes back to a previous post about death. I never knew the guy and never watched him play basketball. So for me, the only thing I was curious about was the initial news flash that came across my phone that said, "Kobe Bryant's daughter and her father die in a helicopter crash." I assumed that meant a step-father but then found out it was just a poorly worded headline. After that, I haven't paid much attention.
Somewhere along the line I think I read that if a helicopter pilot flies 20 hours a week for 20 years he has a 37% chance of dying. (Not sure how that compares to other forms of transportation.) From the sounds of the media about the pilot's career, he was just on the unlucky side of that statistic and took a few others with him.
I appreciate your explanation since the media gets it wrong so often (especially in the first 24 hours). I was glad when they finally mentioned some of the others on the flight. It seems like they're an afterthought when others are celebrities. After all, it's a tragedy no matter who is on board.
this is what you should be writing about - airplane and helicopter stuff. better than the guy who always rights for magazines. your experience and writing ability are wasted on the other nonsensical posts. you may be a nitwit but you can write when its about something you know instead of something yu believe
Coincidentally, I have another post coming up shortly about this accident. It's much more in-depth and deals with how the pilot, his aircraft and his passengers ended up on that hillside. To me, it's interesting because over the length of my career, I have a couple of times been in similar situations as Kobe's pilot. Thank God, they did not end in a fatal accident.
In aviation, we know that accidents are usually never the result of a single decision. More often there is a chain of events that leads up to them. Break the chain and (hopefully!) the accident doesn't happen. Trouble is, we pilots do not always see the links in the chain until it's too late.
Some people have suggested that they never should've taken off that morning. But it's not as simple as the pilot telling Kobe, "Weather is too bad today, boss. You better call an Uber. Or two." Nope. In fact, the weather wasn't THAT horrible...at least, not horrible enough to cancel a VFR helicopter flight. That kind of stuff is what helicopters do. And so they went. Once airborne, a sequence of events was set in place. There were opportunities to abort the flight, but I believe that the pilot was convinced right up until the very end that he could get the helicopter safely to their destination. Turned out he was wrong.
This may have been a case of a pilot "simply" flying into a cloud or fog bank and then crashing, but there is actually nothing simple about it.
Oh, and I will continue to waste my time and write about the things that intrigue me, whether they be aviation subjects or not. Nobody...and I mean nobody is compelled to click on and read this blog. And to be honest, as this thing is not "monetized" and doesn't generate a dime of revenue for me, I don't care if nobody reads it! If free internet content is not acceptable to the reader...well...tough shit. Go somewhere else. Alternatively, everyone is welcome to start their own blog and write about any kind of stuff they want.
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