Kobe Bryant dead, private Sikorsky S-76 down

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Kobe Bryant dead, private Sikorsky S-76 down

#1 Post by probes » Sun Jan 26, 2020 9:34 pm

Kobe Bryant: Basketball legend dies in helicopter crash

Five people killed, CNN says.

R.I.P.

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

#2 Post by Alisoncc » Sun Jan 26, 2020 9:53 pm

I understand those who choose to fly them, it's the supreme challenge, but those who choose to fly in them to get from A to B - just plain stoopid.
Rev Mother Bene Gesserit.

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

#3 Post by probes » Sun Jan 26, 2020 9:59 pm


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

#4 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Mon Jan 27, 2020 8:03 am

I hear the aircraft that went down was a Sikorsky S 76. Nine people were killed (including Bryant's daughter) and there were no survivors. Apparently the crash site wasn't easily accessible and when the fire service arrived their problem was exacerbated by a small bush fire and burning magnesium (which explodes when in contact with water).

Awful thing to happen.
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Re: Kobe Bryant dead, private Sikorsky S-76 down

#5 Post by Sisemen » Mon Jan 27, 2020 8:14 am

Private Sikorsky’s dead? :-o

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

#6 Post by probes » Mon Jan 27, 2020 9:12 am

sorry for the mis-worded title.


Anyways, there had been fog.

"A flight plan indicated the helicopter, reportedly registered to Island Express Holding Corp., took off from John Wayne Airport in Orange County at 9.06am PST and the last signal was received from the aircraft at 9.45am. It was expected to land at San Gabriel Valley Airport in El Monte.

Bryant's helicopter circled for a time just east of Interstate 5, near Glendale. Air traffic controllers noted poor visibility around Burbank, just to the north, and Van Nuys, to the northwest.

After holding up the helicopter for other aircraft, they cleared the Sikorsky S-76 to proceed north along Interstate 5 through Burbank before turning west to follow U.S Route 101, the Ventura Highway.

Shortly after 9:40 a.m., the helicopter turned again, toward the southeast, and climbed to more than 2,000 feet above sea level. It then descended and crashed into the hillside at about 1,400 feet, according to data from Flightradar24.

When it struck the ground, the helicopter was flying at about 160 knots (184 mph) and descending at a rate of more than 4,000 feet per minute, the Flightradar24 data showed. The impact scattered debris over an area about the size of a football field, Villanueva said.

Those living nearby the crash scene said they heard what sounded like a low-flying airplane or helicopter. Colin Storm said: 'It was very foggy so we couldn't see anything. But then we heard some sputtering, and then a boom.'"


My BH used to play (hobby)basketball and for him it was an extremely sad news.

sorry for others and the pilot, too, of course. The weather apparently had been against him.

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

#7 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Mon Jan 27, 2020 9:45 am

Good synopsis here (he quotes the casualty toll as 5. It was revised upwards to 9 later).




Fog and CFIT (or perhaps uncontrolled given the high descent rate) seems the likely cause of this accident but as ever we will wait for the FAA and NTSB reports for the actual facts. Seems reminiscent of the accident that killed musician Stevie Ray Vaughan although this accident occurred in the afternoon...

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

#8 Post by ian16th » Mon Jan 27, 2020 10:15 am

Surely The Night Music Died was February 3, 1959, when Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Rudy Vallee all were killed in the Beechcraft Bonanza.
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Re: Kobe Bryant dead, private Sikorsky S-76 down

#9 Post by Boac » Mon Jan 27, 2020 10:32 am

I have to say that looking at the maps it looks like a bad case of 'lost'/'press-on-itis' - and that's without a METAR.

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

#10 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Mon Jan 27, 2020 11:19 am

ian16th wrote:
Mon Jan 27, 2020 10:15 am
Surely The Night Music Died was February 3, 1959, when Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Rudy Vallee all were killed in the Beechcraft Bonanza.
That was the original night for sure. I was thinking of a similar helicopter related accident.
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Re: Kobe Bryant dead, private Sikorsky S-76 down

#11 Post by Undried Plum » Mon Jan 27, 2020 12:07 pm

Bloody tragic.

Form your own opinion as to whether this looks like yet another of those CFIT tragedies involving inappropriate continuance of VFR flight into IMC.

Here's the Radar+RT+Wx:


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

#12 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Mon Jan 27, 2020 12:44 pm

As noted in both video clips posted above, it seems that the pilot may have attempted to complete a 180 degree to turn back along highway 101 after encountering falling visibility but turned into cloud and tried to out climb the terrain IMC with the resulting crash.
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Re: Kobe Bryant dead, private Sikorsky S-76 down

#13 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Mon Jan 27, 2020 1:24 pm

It seems that there might have been some psychological pressure on the pilot to get there....
Bryant, the 18-time NBA All-Star was said to have been headed to Mamba Academy - which he founded - in Thousand Oaks for a youth tournament involving his daughter and her teammate Alyssa.
https://www.latimes.com/california/stor ... -calabasas

Always a difficult thing if one's boss is keen to arrive on time, even if he doesn't say anything to the pilot.

As might have been the case in this accident...

https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/164691
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Re: Kobe Bryant dead, private Sikorsky S-76 down

#14 Post by Undried Plum » Mon Jan 27, 2020 1:46 pm

For me, personally, these CFIT things touch a horribly raw nerve.

In the late 1970s I was the Flying Convenor on the Committee of Embra Flying Club. In my time there in that decade we had no less than five fatal CFITs.

The first was not an IMC affair, but what happened was that one member rented a plain vanilla C150, six-pack instruments only and not at all fit for IFR, from another member; took his girlfriend to Glenforsa just before Crimbo; had a good dinner and coupla glasses of wine; decided to fly a circuit at night from the unlit grass strip of the Hotel solo; crashed; disappeared. Dead. Much bollox talked about it afterwards, but the truth was simple: he flew the thing into the Sound of Mull turning Base to Final in the dark. He swam ashore, deeply hypothermic and in cold shock; and died when sitting down against a tree. His body was found many months later.

The second(?) was a CFIT involving a couple of members who should have known better. P1 was the CFI of the local RAF(VRT) gliding unit. A VFR man. His passenger was a traffic cop who was doing his IMC Rating at the Club but had not got through the VDF part of the Course which was the staple at Turnhouse in those days. Spanked a power station chimney top with their wingtip trying to do an improvised let-down into Shoreham in fog. Tabloids made much of their heroic efforts to avoid the primary school and a petrol station in the fog. Crashed; burned; no survivors. I went to the funerals. Both of the funerals, actually. Personally representing myself, personally, but also on behahalf of the many members of the Club who wished so.

The third(?) ( forgive my memory confusion as to the sequence) was a guy who was a bit of a 'star' in the Club. He rapidly progressed from PPL to IMC to Twin. He was a very successful young businessman who traded agricultural machinery and products to/fro Ireland just as that country was going into the EC. He bought a piston single and soon grew wary of flying it over the Irish Sea. Then he did an IMC Rating and bought a twin and did a Twin Rating (Group B, technically) so he could sneak under the Class A airways. Then he did an IR.

In those days the IR Initial had to be done at CAAFU Stanstead. He flew his twin there; sat the test; failed; and flew back to to Scotland. He crashed on the top of Benarty Hill in Fife, looking for a locally well known sucker hole which usually forms in its lee and allows a visual let-down to Glenrothes airstrip where he kept his twin. My black tie was, by then, well worn out, having been at so many funerals.

I was the Club representative. It felt awful.

The fourth, if that was the number in the horrendously rapid succession, was a Club member who flew our Archer into the second biggest hill in the Cheviots in a snowstorm. Awful, just awful.

The fifth one killed our own CFI. Flew into Bishop Hill near Loch Leven with another club member who was doing an IMC Course. VFR into IMC, just like most of the others. Spanked the hill; they died.

So many deaths. So needlessly. So repeatedly.

It wells up emotion in me when I so often read these CFIT/VFR/IMC things, just as it did when the victims of such stupidity were closely held friends.

As Flying Convenor, I was powerless to prevent those deaths, but I was answerable. I still do not have answers which satisfy me.

CFITs, the ones which involve continued flight under VFR-imagined conditions into actual IMC, are the stuff of my nightmares.

Awful. Just awful. So avoidable, but by whom? The survivors?

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

#15 Post by Slasher » Mon Jan 27, 2020 2:22 pm

Finally found out who this bloke is, or was. Got confused with Bryant Gumbel.

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

#16 Post by Ex-Ascot » Mon Jan 27, 2020 2:57 pm

Slasher wrote:
Mon Jan 27, 2020 2:22 pm
Finally found out who this bloke is, or was. Got confused with Bryant Gumbel.
Obviously I had no bloody idea in fact 'er indoors had to explain to me the difference between baseball and basketball. Apparently one is rounders and the other is netball both played by little school girls in short skirts in the UK :-o. Had a contract at a place down south where I had to drive past a private girl's school playing field. Nearly wrapped the XJS around the roundabout a few times.

Anyway, seemed like a popular decent fellow, so very sad about all who died but sounds like pilot error.
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Re: Kobe Bryant dead, private Sikorsky S-76 down

#17 Post by G-CPTN » Mon Jan 27, 2020 3:37 pm

Ex-Ascot wrote:
Mon Jan 27, 2020 2:57 pm
sounds like pilot error.
Is there a difference between pilot 'error' and misjudgement of weather conditions and associated terrain?

For one it implies a catastrophic action or mistake and for the other a set of circumstances with no way out.

OK, you can argue that to continue the flight was unwise, but one doesn't necessarily have all the information to hand before things get critical and beyond recovery.

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

#18 Post by Boac » Mon Jan 27, 2020 3:48 pm

"Is there a difference between pilot 'error' and misjudgement of weather conditions and associated terrain?" - no. NB We do no know the cause of the crash yet, although we can surmise..

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

#19 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Mon Jan 27, 2020 3:58 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. NB We do no know the cause of the crash yet, although we can surmise..
The pilot didn't sound like a bumbling, bimbling amateur in his exchanges with ATC. Whatever happened after he was cleared into Class D airspace seemed to catch up with him pretty fast. A bank of fog in the valley with him below a level to receive the radar following service?

I am surmising again.
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Re: Kobe Bryant dead, private Sikorsky S-76 down

#20 Post by Boac » Mon Jan 27, 2020 4:12 pm

Questions, tgg, while surmising:
1) Why 'in the valley'? It is way off-route (101). He appeared to be following route N1 until then. 101 goes directly to 'destination'. N1 doesn't.
2) Radar is of no use when you are scud running, only when you abort.

I doubt, actually, we will ever know.

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