Helicopter Pilot Lost Awareness Before Crash that Killed Kobe Bryant, 8 Others, Board Rules

Feb. 9—The National Transportation Safety Board has unanimously determined that a helicopter pilot became disoriented while trying to climb above cloud cover before crashing into a Calabasas hillside, killing Lakers legend Kobe Bryant, his daughter and seven others.

The determination, based on the results of a lengthy investigation by the agency's staff, was presented to the panel, which unanimously adopted the finding during a remote hearing that was live-cast early Tuesday morning, Feb. 9, more than a year after the fatal crash.

During a four-hour meeting, the panel took several votes, all in agreement on the crash's cause.

NTSB investigators put the blame for the crash on the pilot, Ara Zobayan, determining that he did not follow his training or come up with a backup plan to deal with worsening weather.

They also determined that the pilot likely put "self-induced" pressure on himself to continue the flight for his famous client and that may have contributed to the crash.

The NTSB investigation found no indication that Bryant, or the helicopter company, actually pressured Zobayan to keep going despite cloudy conditions.

Citing "spatial disorientation," NTSB staffers told the board that the pilot may have believed he was still climbing when the helicopter was actually descending.

"We are talking about spatial disorientation, where literally the pilot may not know which way is up or down, whether he or she is leaning left or right," NTSB Board Chairman Robert L. Sumwalt said.

"It's not like in this crash the pilot was just flying along and didn't know where the hills were and blundered into the side of a hill," he said.

Investigators said Zobayan should have steadied the helicopter, climbed slowly and reached out to air traffic controllers to declare an emergency. NTSB Board member Michael Graham, a career aviator, said the pilot "didn't even follow the training."

Investigators and board members did note that Zobayan was an experienced and well-regarded pilot.

"Good people can make a bad decision, and we wanted to get to the bottom of why," Bill English, the investigator in charge, told the board.

Flying with Bryant that day were his 13-year-old daughter, Gianna; Orange Coast College baseball coach John Altobelli, his wife, Keri, and their daughter Alyssa; Mamba Academy basketball coach Christina Mauser; and mother and daughter Sarah and Payton Chester. None survived.

The Sikorsky S-76B helicopter carrying them took off from John Wayne Airport just after 9 a.m. Forty minutes later, the aircraft was heard cruising low over Calabasas before crashing into the side of a hill.

NTSB documents show Zobayan's flight path took him along several major highways that morning on the way to Calabasas.

Starting at around 9:30 a.m., he flew in a northwest direction above the I-5 Freeway through Burbank and the San Fernando Valley, before turning west along the 118 Freeway.

He stayed level at around 1,400 feet as he cut southwest to above the 101 Freeway, heading toward the Ventura County border.

The trouble began almost as soon as Zobayan encountered the dense clouds of the Malibu Canyon area.

While still flying west above the 101, Zobayan suddenly made a left turn deeper into the cloudy area — records show he told air traffic controllers he would try to ascend to 4,000 feet to come out on top of the clouds. But altitude data showed he was actually descending, according to data released by the NTSB.

A firefighter who'd flown over the area numerous times described the canyon as trapping the occasional cloud bank as if it were in a bowl. Several pilots familiar with flying-in-low-visibility situations said they believed Zobayan likely got disoriented in the thick clouds.

The NTSB board determined that a terrain-awareness warning system wouldn't have prevented the crash.

Bruce Landsberg, vice chairman of the NTSB board, said Zobayan "knew the terrain, he had been flying in this area for a decade, he had over 8000 hours, he could look out the windshield and see he was getting into instrument conditions and went contrary to all of his training."

Landsberg noted the history of crashes that claimed the lives of celebrities, including Buddy Holly, Patsy Cline, Aaliyah and Stevie Ray Vaughan.

"In all those cases you are dealing with someone of great star-power status and pilots who desperately want to do a good job for the customer," Landsberg said. "My sense is, the preponderance of evidence indicates this pilot really wanted to get where he was going."

The tragedy of the crash reverberated through Southern California and beyond.

Hundreds of people, many fans of Bryant and the Los Angeles Lakers, crowded the crash site for days. Some of the youth basketball players who saw Bryant at the Mamba Academy tournament the day before showed up from the facility a few miles away.

Dozens of NBA players expressed shock and sadness after news of the crash spread — some were getting ready to play games the same day, and tributes poured out across social media and on game broadcasts.

Several lawsuits were filed in the crash aftermath.

Family members of the victims, including Bryant's widow, Vanessa Bryant, sued Island Express Helicopters. The company also sued the air traffic controllers who communicated with Zobayan. And Vanessa Bryant sued the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department after it was revealed that at least one deputy took photos of the victims' bodies at the crash site and shared them with people at a bar.

___

(c)2021 The Orange County Register (Santa Ana, Calif.)

Visit The Orange County Register (Santa Ana, Calif.) at www.ocregister.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.