On January 26, 2020, a helicopter crashed in a mountainous area in Los Angeles, USA, killing nine people on board. The accident quickly shocked the world, because one of the victims had a special identity, he was NBA superstar Kobe Bryant.
Passers-by photographed the plane after it crashed
Kobe bryant
Also killed were his second daughter, Gianna, two other mothers and daughters, two instructors and a pilot. These are Bryant's daughter's teammates, teammates' mothers, or coaches. The investigation report of the air crash was not officially released until February 10, 2021.
Nine people were killed in the accident
So was this accident caused by a plane malfunction, a personal mistake on the part of the pilot, or was it caused by too much pressure on the pilot? Today, we will restore the entire process in detail according to the investigation report and see what happened in this air crash.
The crash site of the helicopter that Bryant was riding
On the same day, Bryant was preparing to accompany his second daughter to participate in a basketball training match at the Mamba Sports Academy, and the destination was near Camarillo, 129 kilometers away, and the whole journey took about half an hour.
The Mamba Sports Academy was established in 2018 as a sports training academy co-sponsored by Kobe Bryant and Sports Academy CEO Chad Faulkner.
The Mamba Sports Academy is not a university, it is a multi-sport training center for training and developing young athletes. Located in Thousand Oaks, California, the college covers an area of about 9,290 square meters and includes 5 basketball courts, 5 volleyball courts, 2 beach volleyball courts, etc.
Kobe Bryant has a nickname called "Black Mamba", which is the most venomous snake in the African savannah, and Kobe's spirit is also known as the "Mamba spirit", and "never give up" is Kobe's own definition of this spirit. In order to continue this spirit and create more opportunities for more students who love basketball, Kobe Bryant established the Mamba Sports Academy.
But after Bryant's tragic death, the Mamba Sports Academy (Mamba Sports Academy) has officially removed the word "Mamba" from the name of the academy out of respect for Kobe.
Mamba Sports Academy (Chinese for PS)
Bryant wore Mamba Academy inside the gymnasium
Kobe Bryant with his second daughter, Gianna
The helicopter they were flying in was a Sikorsky S-76B luxury helicopter of Island Express. Island Express provides helicopter charters and air tours in the California region, and their customers include celebrities such as movie star Kylie Jenner, NBA Clippers' Kawhi Leonard, and Kobe Bryant, who was killed.
The Sikorsky S-76B helicopter that Bryant was flying in
The interior of the same helicopter
And Kobe Bryant's pilot is very powerful, he is the chief pilot and instructor of this company, Alaa Zobayan. The group's original route was to fly north from Santa Ana over Burbank and then west to Camarillo.
Bryant's scheduled flight path for the day
Because the company is not qualified to fly instrument, pilots will fly visually at two speeds on the ground, one on State Highway 5 and the other on State Highway 101.
The first half of the journey is mainly a visual flight along State Highway 5
The helicopter took off from Santa Ana at 9 a.m., and Bryant chose to travel by helicopter not only because he had money (which is also the main reason), but also because the urban planning of Los Angeles is so poor, especially the design of the intersection of the two highways, which causes the place to be congested almost 24 hours a day.
Congestion in Los Angeles
Kobe Bryant and his party were photographed by fans when they got on the plane that day
For a superstar like Kobe, time is more precious than anything else, so chartering a helicopter is the best option. Also, the reason why you walk along the road instead of flying from the sea is because the sky in Los Angeles is equally crowded, with all kinds of planes flying over it every day. In just 129 kilometers, they have to pass through the two airport control areas of Burbank and Fanness.
Bryant's plane had to pass through two control zones
Before entering Burbank airspace, the visibility was low that day and their helicopters could only fly visually, so they had to wait in circles for 12 minutes until the airspace was clear. The difference between visual flight and instrument flight is also important to this accident, which we will explain in detail later.
Passers-by photographed Bryant's helicopter hovering as it circled
After 12 minutes, Bryant's helicopter was finally allowed to pass. After passing through the airspace of Van Nays as planned, they will fly along National Highway 101 to reach their destination.
The back helicopter is planned to fly along National Highway 101
After passing through Burbank, the docking air traffic control was also replaced with the Van Ness control area. This area is cloudy and foggy, so they can only fly below the clouds because they have to make sure they can see the reference. After that, the helicopter began to enter a hilly terrain, and it was less than 10 minutes away from its destination.
The helicopter had been flying under the clouds during the previous flight
Bryant's helicopter is about to enter a hilly terrain
But the visibility was getting worse and worse because the clouds were so low, so Zobayan told the air traffic control that he was going to climb some height to get through the clouds here.
The radar on the air traffic control side could not detect them because of the hills, so the air traffic control asked Zobayan to press the transponder through the radio to identify them, and Zobayan did the same.
Zobayan piloted the plane and tried to cross the clouds
Recordings of the conversations at the time showed:
When the air traffic controller saw the helicopter on the radar, he asked him, "What are you doing here?"
Zobhayan said they were about to climb to 1,219 meters.
The air traffic controller was still a little puzzled after hearing this, so he continued to ask him, what about after the climb, but there was no response from the other end.
Bryant's helicopter crashed after it burst out of the clouds
At 9:47 a.m. on January 26, 2020, Bryant's helicopter crashed directly on a hillside in Calabasas after rushing out of the clouds, and the helicopter quickly caught fire. Firefighters arrived at the scene 40 minutes later and extinguished the fire, but all nine people on board, including Bryant, had been killed.
The scene of Bryant's helicopter crash
I won't say much about the impact of this incident, everyone should still remember it. Because of the high level of attention, the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board launched an investigation on the same day, and the investigators they sent were also the backbone of the major air crash investigations. Two days later, Jennifer Hormendy, the chairman of the Transportation Safety Commission, held a press conference in person, promising to find out the ins and outs of the matter as soon as possible, and asking the public to provide video or photo information related to the helicopter that day.
The wreckage of the helicopter covered almost the entire hillside, and it can be seen from the scattered parts that the force of the impact at that time should have been very large, which also indicates that the vertical speed of the helicopter at the time of the crash was much greater than the horizontal speed.
The scene of Bryant's helicopter crash
Investigators carefully examined the flight control surfaces, engines, rotors, and helicopter flight instruments, but found no signs of failure prior to impact, not even the mechanical and electrical systems. And in this case, the general weather and man-made reasons are greater.
Photo of Bryant's helicopter crash scene
But when the investigation officially began, the investigators were very troubled, because there was no cockpit recorder on the helicopter. So they had to use a system called ADS-B to reconstruct the helicopter's flight trajectory, and they got the flight path we talked about above. After that, they checked the weather conditions of the day, and although there was a thick fog on the flight path, it was not to the point where it was impossible to get around.
There was a lot of fog on the Kobe Helicopter route
The focus of the investigation quickly turned to pilot Zobayan, who has more than 8,000 hours of flying experience, and who is not only a flight instructor for the company, but also the chief pilot of the Island Express.
And since 2015, he has been one of Kobe's several exclusive pilots, and he has often picked up Kobe's family before, and the two have long become friends. The route taken that day was even more familiar to Zobayan, and it stands to reason that a pilot with such a lot of experience and such a good personal relationship with Kobe Bryant should not have a problem.
Island Express records show that at 7 a.m. that day, Zobayan had done a weather risk assessment before the flight, and although there were low-hanging clouds, he thought the risk level of the flight was low. Judging from the flight trajectory, there is really no problem with the route he planned.
According to the weather report of the day, the bottom of the cloud in the area where the helicopter crashed was about 335 meters from the ground, and according to the connection detection of the air traffic control radar and the helicopter transponder at that time, the actual height of the helicopter at that time was 137 meters, which was still far from the bottom of the clouds, and it stands to reason that they should be able to see the ground clearly.
Bryant helicopters fly under clouds most of the time
But at the same time, a roadside camera happened to catch the helicopter, and the video showed that at 137 meters, their helicopter disappeared into a dense fog.
A parking lot camera captured the helicopter entering the dense fog
So this only shows one thing, the height of the cloud base at that time was certainly not 335 meters as stated in the air notice, and the actual cloud base distance was probably less than 137 meters, and later studies confirmed this.
It turns out that this Calabasas region has a unique climate, and the fog of the Pacific Ocean in the west often flows down a canyon called Malibu into the area where the helicopter crashed, so the clouds in the area were actually much thicker than the weather reports at that time.
The Calabasas region has a unique climate
In aviation terminology, Zobayan belongs to the category of "misguided entry into instrumental meteorological conditions", and in this case the visibility is reduced to almost zero, so the pilot can only fly on the instrument, otherwise the probability of an accident is high.
At this point, we need to explain to you what visual flight and instrument flight are all about. In fact, we don't need to study the complexity, you just need to simply understand that you can't enter the clouds by visual flight, because you have to make sure that you can see the reference. As the name suggests, "instrument flight" is a kind of flight that requires the flight status and position to be judged completely or partially according to the instrument. Weather has less of an impact on instrument flight than visual flight. But instrument flying is not something you can fly if you want to, you first have to be certified and qualified.
When entering the clouds, the helicopter needs to be qualified to fly instruments
In fact, Zobayan has an instrument flight certificate, but the company he belongs to does not have instrument flight qualifications, so Zobayan must use visual flight throughout the process. The first question of the accident here comes, since you know that your company is not qualified to fly instrument, then why do you have to fly in?
Zobayan himself is an experienced instructor, so he should know how to prevent and avoid dense fog, and know that he should communicate with air traffic control in time before the weather conditions deteriorate, so as to carry out emergency operations such as flying around, making a U-turn or landing early, but Zobayan flew directly in.
Zobayan flew the helicopter directly into the clouds
So investigators began to wonder if Zobyan was urged by Kobe Bryant and others, and then flew into the clouds in defiance of the rules?
The only way to confirm this conjecture was to listen to the cockpit recording at the time, but the recorder was dismantled by the Island Express, so they had to ask several other pilots who had served Kobe, but they all unanimously said that Kobe never put any pressure on us, so this conjecture was ruled out.
In the end, investigators speculated that the reason why Zobbayan chose to fly in was probably because he put too much pressure on himself, because he and Kobe Bryant have long been friends, so he may be more anxious than Kobe himself.
Kobe bryant
As for the reason for entering the dense fog, the investigator can only speculate here, and now there is still a question, in fact, even if the plane inadvertently entered the dense fog, as long as the pilot operates correctly, there is still a remedy, after all, the plane has an attitude instrument and an altimeter, so what did Zobyan do at that time?
After flying into the fog, Zobayan found that he could not see anything clearly, because their altitude was very low, only 137 meters. So he decided to climb above the clouds and fly over the area, and he also told the air traffic control about this decision.
But as he climbed, he didn't notice that the helicopter had begun to slowly tilt to the left, and that it was also dropping in altitude. At that time, he could have found this problem if he could scan a posture or altimeter, but for some reason he just didn't look at it.
In the dense fog, the instruments showed that the aircraft had tilted badly
The attitude gauge shows that the aircraft has tilted
According to the training requirements, the pilot needs to slow down and switch to autopilot, and then report to the air traffic control for assistance. But Zobayan didn't do the same, he couldn't feel the plane tilting at all, let alone the plane still descending.
Because he has encountered the problem of spatial disorientation, which is simply an illusion. The main manifestation is that the flight state perceived or judged by the pilot is inconsistent with the actual state of the aircraft, and sometimes the error can exceed 90 degrees. For example, when the plane is flying level, the pilot feels that he is flying upside down, or when the plane is descending, he feels that he is climbing.
Some people will say, how is this possible? So imagine if you were on a roller coaster with your eyes closed, would you be able to point out the sky, land, east, south, north, west, and north? The analogy may not be accurate, but it's generally similar.
Zobbayan encounters spatial disorientation
And this was the case with Zobayan, who was disoriented by the dense fog in front of him. Despite the fact that the plane leaned badly to the left. But his semicircular tube gave him the illusion that the plane was still horizontal due to angular acceleration.
The whole process of the accident can be summed up as follows: Zobayan confidently entered the clouds, causing the vision bar to deteriorate, after which he wanted to climb above the clouds. However, after the climb, visibility quickly drops to 0, which causes him to lose sight of any ground references, and this is where spatial disorientation occurs. Before you know it, the planes begin to tilt to the left, causing them to go from climbing to diving. By the time he saw the ground, he had tried to lift the plane, but it was too late.
The accident was caused by the pilot's reckless entry into the dense fog without complying with the training requirements, and he did not look at the instruments during the climb, not knowing that he had fallen into a space shift, which led to the helicopter finally developing into an irreparable state, and the pilot Zobayan was mainly responsible for the accident.
But the Island Express has also received a lot of criticism, because they not only dismantled the flight data recorder and cockpit recorder, but also did not even install the ground proximity warning system and the tilt warning system, if there is one of the two, the accident could have been avoided, so why did the Island Express dare to do this?
It turned out that the helicopter was designed to carry up to 12 people, and it was also equipped with cockpit recording. At that time, the helicopter was also owned by the Illinois Department of Transportation and was primarily used to transport governors and government officials. Later, when Island Express took over, they changed the seats from 12 to 8 people and dismantled the systems because of the cost.
The helicopter Bryant was flying in was once owned by the Illinois Department of Transportation
They were able to do this because the United States has different regulations for the installation of these systems. That is, helicopters with 12 seats and above must be installed, and helicopters with less than 12 seats can be installed or not. The Island Express, perhaps to save costs or to create a more spacious ride environment for customers, changed the 12-seater to the eight-seater so they could tear down those systems and save money.
Kobe Bryant with his wife and daughter
Bryant's wife, Vanessa Bryant, also sued Island Express for allowing the plane to take off when the weather did not allow it, and demanded hundreds of millions of dollars in punitive damages. But on June 23, 2021, the two sides reached a settlement, and neither side disclosed how much Island Express finally gave to them.
Kobe's wife, Vanessa Bryant
But no matter how much he loses in the end, the legend who won five NBA championships and was selected as an 18-time All-Star will never return. The problem of space disorientation has always been one of the main factors in the occurrence of air crashes, and it is believed that with the development of technology and the improvement of rules, this problem will eventually be solved in the future.
Many NBA stars at Kobe's memorial service
Video version of the content of this issue: Kobe Bryant's crash investigation report interpretation, from the moment it entered the dense fog, it was irretrievable, documentary