Kobe Bryant dead, private Sikorsky S-76 down

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Re: Kobe Bryant dead, private Sikorsky S-76 down

#21 Post by Ex-Ascot » Mon Jan 27, 2020 4:18 pm

Aimed at you chopper guys. Am I stupid but what is the problem doing an emergency landing IMC. Identify a wide open space on GPS and just gently descend onto it. Where have I got this wrong? Bit different with a heavy four jet. I have obviously missed something.
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Re: Kobe Bryant dead, private Sikorsky S-76 down

#22 Post by Boac » Mon Jan 27, 2020 4:40 pm

It is the 'IMC' bit that complicates things. Helicopleters fly well on instruments (like a real aeroplane...) when they have forward speed. Slow down too much and they become VERY difficult.

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Re: Kobe Bryant dead, private Sikorsky S-76 down

#23 Post by Ex-Ascot » Mon Jan 27, 2020 5:04 pm

Boac wrote:
Mon Jan 27, 2020 4:40 pm
It is the 'IMC' bit that complicates things. Helicopleters fly well on instruments (like a real aeroplane...) when they have forward speed. Slow down too much and they become VERY difficult.
OK Boac like you I am fixed wing with limited rotary experience but still don't understand why you can't hover IMC. Love your reference to 'real aircraft''.
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Re: Kobe Bryant dead, private Sikorsky S-76 down

#24 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Mon Jan 27, 2020 5:15 pm

Boac wrote:
Mon Jan 27, 2020 4:40 pm
It is the 'IMC' bit that complicates things. Helicopleters fly well on instruments (like a real aeroplane...) when they have forward speed. Slow down too much and they become VERY difficult.
Too low, in fog, without a co-pilot with the autopilot possibly having automatically decoupled below something like 60/70 knots, the pilot had to hand fly the aircraft. Even with a stability augmentation system the helicopter would be a handful and a GPS would not provide sufficient terrain and drift detail to allow for safe hovering as the pilot needs visual cues and references to finely judge drift and correct for that. A bad situation to be in.

I leave it to the helicopter professionals to answer the question, just my tuppence worth.
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Re: Kobe Bryant dead, private Sikorsky S-76 down

#25 Post by probes » Mon Jan 27, 2020 5:32 pm

At takeoff a few minutes after 9 a.m., the weather was marginal, with a solid overcast at 1,300 feet and visibility of about five miles in a thin haze. The pilot was flying according to “Visual Flight Rules,” or VFR, meaning that he was relying on his ability to see the terrain below him, and hence had to stay below the clouds. As an alternative, he could have contacted air traffic controllers and switched to “Instrument Flight Rules,” or IFR, that would have allowed him to climb up through the clouds. Controllers would have given him a series of waypoints to follow that would keep him well clear of terrain, dangerous weather, and other aircraft. Flying IFR, however, is time-consuming and constrains pilots to following the directions of controllers. “Southern California airspace is extremely busy, and they might tell you to wait an hour,” assistant professor of aviation at the City University of New York Paul Cline told me. “You’re just one of many waiting in line, and it doesn’t matter if you’re Kobe Bryant.”

So the helicopter continued under visual flight rules. According to data transmitted continuously by the plane’s transponder, it climbed to an altitude of 800 feet as it headed to the northwest near its top speed of 178 mph. For the next 12 minutes, it sped over the inland sprawl of Orange County, past former citrus groves that had long ago been repurposed as warehouses and strip malls. It left the beach enclave of Huntington Beach to the left, and Disneyland to the right, as it worked its way north and west, drawing ever closer to the east-west range of hills, the Santa Monica Mountains, which define the northern end of Los Angeles proper and shelter the city’s most storied redoubts: Beverly Hills, the Hollywood Hills, Malibu.
***
Low-level aviation in the greater L.A. area is constrained by the mountains and the passes that cut through them. Fortunately for pilots navigating by sight, the major highways also make use of these passes, so in a pinch a disoriented pilot can find his way through by following the traffic. There’s an old joke that “IFR” stands for “I Follow Roads.”

But before Bryant’s helicopter could enter the San Fernando Valley, it had to wait. Directly ahead lay Burbank Airport, surrounded by an invisible cylinder of airspace 10 nautical miles across that cannot be entered without permission from air traffic control.
The journey was almost at an end: the Mamba Sports Academy lay just 17 miles to the west.

For the first time, though, the helicopter was no longer flying over the flat expanse of dense urban Los Angeles. Here, at the suburban fringes, the terrain was hilly and climbing. To make matters worse, the canyon that stretched to the south has a tendency to funnel in the maritime fog.

By 9:45 a.m., rising temperatures had driven away the fog from the majority of the town, but thick low clouds still wrapped around the slopes just a few hundred feet higher.
As the helicopter approached Calabasas, it was less than 500 feet above the ground. Perhaps wanting to put a safety margin between himself and the increasingly hilly terrain, the pilot began a brisk climb, ascending nearly 1,000 feet in 36 seconds. This put it very close to the bottom of the cloud layer reported at that time at nearby Van Nuys Airport.

We may never know for sure if the helicopter had indeed entered the clouds. But if it did, then it had crossed a kind of invisible line. It was now engaged in what air-crash investigators call “continued VFR flight into instrument meteorological conditions.” Basically, a pilot dependent on seeing the ground to stay oriented can no longer see the ground. Amid a sudden whiteout, disorientation can come surprisingly quickly. “When you get in the soup, your senses don’t work,” Cline, the aviation professor, said. “For me, I always feel like I’m falling to the right. Other people might feel like they’re falling to the left, or climbing.”

A trained pilot can stay right-side up by paying attention to the instruments on his panel. But at low altitude over Calabasas, Bryant’s pilot also had another problem. He knew that the ground ahead was rising, and he couldn’t see it. To avoid hitting it, he could keep climbing, and hope that he’d gain altitude faster than the ground underneath him. Or he could slow to a stop and descend vertically until he popped out of the bottom of the cloud.
Based on the subsequent track of the aircraft, however, it seems that the pilot decided to take a third option. According to data transmitted by its transponder, at 15 seconds past 9:45 a.m. the pilot banked to the left, then dove. Why? We can never get into his head to know for sure. But based on my own experience flying light aircraft, the sudden intensification of danger creates of sense of mental overload in which it’s nearly impossible to rationally weigh one’s various options. Instead, one takes the most immediate and obvious choice. In this case, that meant trying to get back into clear air by diving back under the cloud layer while pulling a hard 180 to retreat from the dangerous terrain.

Eighteen seconds after beginning the turn, the helicopter had lost 800 feet and returned to an easterly heading. But what the pilot had failed to reckon with is that the ground rose not only straight ahead, but on the sides as well. The S-76B had impacted a hillside above the Los Virgenes Municipal Water District facility at a speed of 170 mph.
To be clear, this scenario is just one possibility. “I can’t stress enough, we do not know what happened,” said Cline. It’s possible, he acknowledges, that the plane suddenly developed a mechanical problem that forced it down. Still, he can’t help but be haunted by the idea that if Bryant’s pilot had decided to fly IFR, he and his passengers would still be alive.

http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/01/ ... anger.html

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Re: Kobe Bryant dead, private Sikorsky S-76 down

#26 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Mon Jan 27, 2020 5:38 pm

The Sikorksy S-76 is clearly a very capable helicopter as the flight review of the model D highlights...

https://www.flightglobal.com/flight-tes ... 20.article
The test aircraft carried out an immaculate coupled, hands-off instrument landing system approach to the hover over the runway - fixed-wing pilots will be green with envy. The production aircraft will be able to be landed virtually hands off. Ours was taken down automatically to a high hover using the velocity and radar altitude holds, then lowered to about 1ft using just one button. Sikorsky has built more than 800 S-76 models, which have accumulated more than 5.6 million hours of flight time. It has also incorporated many features from its successful S-92 experience.

One thing to do this on a promulgated approach, completely different when flying blind midst the hills and valleys of bandit country. The accident aircraft was a model B.

Sikorsky S-76B review

Kolb flight path.JPG
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Re: Kobe Bryant dead, private Sikorsky S-76 down

#27 Post by FD2 » Mon Jan 27, 2020 6:07 pm

I flew the 'B' model for three years. It was built as a fast executive helicopter to carry 9 or 10 passengers from A to B at 145 knots. Our KLM version was fitted with a superb Sperry autopilot which, in an emergency, would take us down the ILS and up the runway at 50 feet and 60 knots. Vmin IMC was 60 knots. There was no auto hover facility and it wouldn't be my choice of machine to go grubbing around hilly areas in fog - a Squirrel would be a better bet for that - but IFR machines like the S76 are operated to the same or very similar rules to fixed wing with regard to take off, approach and landing minima.

If I was stuck in the sky with absolutely no options left I might consider a self-controlled let down over an open area and hope that the map makers had included all the obstructions! Then again we shouldn't really allow ourselves to get in that situation in the first place, as professionals. The best point about the 'B' model is the power produced by those two donks. It might write the transmission off but it can get you out of serious difficulties.

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Re: Kobe Bryant dead, private Sikorsky S-76 down

#28 Post by Boac » Mon Jan 27, 2020 6:54 pm

ex-A wrote:still don't understand why you can't hover IMC
- I guess really top of the range modern stuff has gps and accelerometers to enable this (and I think ASR helos can 'auto-hover'), but basic helos need visual reference to hover. My heli hovering has all been low and visual. I tried once to 'hover' a Harrier at height but made a complete cock of it due to no visual reference for 'motion'. The ASI gives up at low speed so you have no idea what your airspeed is, and the H had a nasty 'killer' habit called 'adverse intake momentum yaw' which meant you could run out of aileron very quickly with any yaw present in the low-speed regime. I did...............lost a bit of height.

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Re: Kobe Bryant dead, private Sikorsky S-76 down

#29 Post by FD2 » Mon Jan 27, 2020 7:33 pm

It is possible to hover in coupled flight at night in an SAR role over the sea with doppler radar, rad alt etc all engaged. Hovering up at 1000ft without any visual references might require a little more equipment that this aircraft was fitted with and what would be the requirement for it?

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Re: Kobe Bryant dead, private Sikorsky S-76 down

#30 Post by Rwy in Sight » Mon Jan 27, 2020 9:12 pm

An irrelevant question maybe but what about a EGPWS? Is it necessary would it help?

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Re: Kobe Bryant dead, private Sikorsky S-76 down

#31 Post by Boac » Mon Jan 27, 2020 9:39 pm

No. Of very little use in visual flight. Going IMC in a valley would result in such a cachophany of warnings as to render it useless!

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Re: Kobe Bryant dead, private Sikorsky S-76 down

#32 Post by Undried Plum » Mon Jan 27, 2020 10:50 pm

Boac wrote:
Mon Jan 27, 2020 3:48 pm
"Is there a difference between pilot 'error' and misjudgement of weather conditions and associated terrain?" - no.

It's a Game of Rules.

VFR versus IFR.

Loser dies.

I've seen it before. So have have many of us who have done played that game.

Some: played unto death.

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Re: Kobe Bryant dead, private Sikorsky S-76 down

#33 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Tue Jan 28, 2020 4:23 am

Undried Plum wrote:
Mon Jan 27, 2020 10:50 pm

VFR versus IFR.
I follow roads...



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Re: Kobe Bryant dead, private Sikorsky S-76 down

#34 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Tue Jan 28, 2020 5:35 am

The pilot in the Kobe Bryant case...
The pilot, Ara Zobaya, was licensed commercially to fly helicopters on both visual and instrument flights, Federal Aviation Administration records show. He had 8,200 hours of flight time as of July. He was also licensed as a helicopter flight instructor for normal and instrument flights, as well as a ground instructor for instrument flying.
https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/nati ... 585384002/

Sadly it looks like this chap might have been better filing IFR from the outset. We will probably never know what happened precisely but it seems likely that he might have become momentarily unsure of his position in the fog, at low level while following the road at relatively high speed.
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Re: Kobe Bryant dead, private Sikorsky S-76 down

#35 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Tue Jan 28, 2020 5:57 am

An initial NTSB update/briefing (go 5:29m for start, 13:30 for most relevant facts about terminal part of the flight)

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Re: Kobe Bryant dead, private Sikorsky S-76 down

#36 Post by Boac » Tue Jan 28, 2020 8:37 am

Thing is, tgg, he was not following 'a road' if you look at the pics of the crash site. A winding track.

Do we know the crash site elevation?

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Re: Kobe Bryant dead, private Sikorsky S-76 down

#37 Post by Undried Plum » Tue Jan 28, 2020 8:48 am

As so often before in these ghastly cases, I'm going to ask the obvious and perhaps crass question:

**** didn't he punch up to MSA and go IFR?


Leaving aside the fame of the prime passenger, whose dynamic judgement of height was his job, the pilot was clearly competent to fly IFR and the aircraft appears to have been fit to fly IFR. Why not file an airborne IFR Plan? It's trivially simple to do with a single R/T transmission, especially in the US.

Looking at; and listening to; and reading: the R/T data which I posted earlier in this thread, it's clear that ATC was prodding him to do so. So, why not?

Icing was not a consideration, so why not pull the lever and squeeze back the cyclic and press the PTT tit?

Bloody tragic, as I said before.

I've, personally, stood at the edge of at least nine gravesites of personal friends during the coffin-lowering ceremony and silently asked myself a similar question.

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Re: Kobe Bryant dead, private Sikorsky S-76 down

#38 Post by Boac » Tue Jan 28, 2020 8:59 am

"Bloody tragic" - indeed, and true of most accidents. It does look from the pics of the wreckages as if the 'arrival' was pretty vertical, so LOC or structural (overstress?) must be high on the list.

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Re: Kobe Bryant dead, private Sikorsky S-76 down

#39 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Tue Jan 28, 2020 9:30 am

Boac wrote:
Tue Jan 28, 2020 8:37 am
Thing is, tgg, he was not following 'a road' if you look at the pics of the crash site. A winding track.

Do we know the crash site elevation?
He turned off the road just prior to crash. He may have been attempting a 180... Looks like the helicopter climbed to 2300 feet on the QNH before it descended and impacted the hill.

Anyway I have done speculating so I will wait for the report.
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Re: Kobe Bryant dead, private Sikorsky S-76 down

#40 Post by FD2 » Tue Jan 28, 2020 9:35 am

Cobbling together some of the 'reports' it looks likely that he was about to climb out having gone IMC during VFR or SVFR but suddenly descended without telling ATC. Maybe he saw a sucker's gap and went for it, maybe there was a mechanical or FADEC or auto-pilot or disorientation problem that caused the descent but I agree the impact area is quite small so perhaps he realised it was a non-existent route down, changed his mind and pulled the nose up and pulled blow away power with the collective, hence the slow impact speed and the report of a struggling aircraft which may have been over-pitched. Mixing VMC and IMC when VFR single pilot is not good, even for very experienced IFR rated people. Yet another case of 'pressonitis'? There are so many permutations and possible theories that I for one will be pleased to leave it to the NTSB to come up with their own ideas, which will be based on the known facts. RIP

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