On Sunday, NBA legend Kobe Bryant (1978-2020) died together with his 13-year-old daughter Gianna and seven other people in a helicopter crash. Now the US transport authority NTSB spoke up for the first time and informed the population in a press conference on Monday afternoon local time about the first state of the investigation. Accordingly, the pilot of the accident machine tried to gain altitude shortly before the crash.
You think he wanted to escape such thick clouds or a fog bank. He communicated this to the air traffic controllers in a last radio message. This would also be confirmed by radar data. The helicopter had reached a height of 701 meters and then crashed. At the moment the crash site is still being searched for clues to the cause of the fatal accident. The debris field is very extensive: "It was a pretty devastating accident scene," said lead investigator Jennifer Homendy, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Huge debris field
On the one hand there is the immediate crash site, which is located on a hill, but parts of the helicopter, including the rear, are at the foot of the hill. The hull, on the other hand, is even on the other side of the hill, with the main rotor several hundred meters away. The entire rubble field extends over an area of up to 180 square meters.
One cannot fall back on the evaluation of a black box, as is usual with airplanes. The Sikorsky S-76B helicopter has no such flight data recorder on board. Nevertheless, they are very confident that they will be able to reconstruct the course of the accident. Take a close look at everything, the pilot, the machine, the environmental conditions. All in all, it could take months for a final report to be available.
Thick fog is the most likely cause of the crash
Shortly after the crash, numerous media – partly supported by expert opinions and eyewitness reports – speculated that thick fog was a very likely cause of the crash. Accordingly, the pilot could have lost orientation. In the metropolitan region of Los Angeles, clouds of fog were moving over the city at the time of the crash.
Although there was no general ban on flying, interviewed helicopter pilots described the weather as dangerous for helicopter flights. The Los Angeles police at the same time ordered their own helicopter squadron not to take off due to the fog.