TMZ Reports.. Kobe Bryant Killed In Crash!!! RIP KOBE! May god watch over your family! You and Gigi will always be loved! (1 Viewer)

[jasonsw]

It was a joy and honor to get watch Kobe grow and mature from a teenager to a fully grown man who cared deeply for his family. He was a great ambassador and did a lot for others. I heard a story about a wreck that occurred in his neighborhood. He got out of his car and helped direct traffic.

Many prayers for all those family members and friends affected by the loss of loved ones.

Thanks to whoever edited the Title yesterday. I could barely put one together

 

[Bill]

Saw this on another site I visit

From the looks of this (along with several other articles with credible data) it appears that this pilot would have had no problem with making the flight from where he had been circling in a holding pattern over Glendale straight through to the 101 that would lead him to the Mamba Center in Thousand Oaks. Ara Zobayan, the S-76 pilot (although instrument rated) was flying under 'special VFR rules' for this flight even though the conditions were marginal at best. Under the rules governing his flight it was up to him to maintain visual references along his route in order to identify his position. After he was given clearance to proceed from the holding pattern he was asked to fly northwest using I-5 as as his reference (instead of due west) taking him close to San Fernando before making a gradual turn to the west and then southwest. Under the Visual Flight Rules he would then fly southwest until he flew over the 101, then would turn right and follow the 101 as his visual reference into Thousand Oaks.

The idea of flying over a major highway as a VFR route provides two distinct advantages. One is that is is like being over a giant map... it's easy to see exactly where you are going as long as you fly below the cloud layer (which is required under visual flight rules). But the second (and most important in an area of quick elevation changes) is that the highways run between the high mountain ranges that are all over southern California.

So the problem with having to make the big loop around to the northwest and then back down to the intended flight path over the 101 is that in the event the pilot would encounter a thick patch of fog or a rapidly changing ceiling is that if he had temporarily been blanketed by a lowering ceiling or fog bank, he would have been blinded to 101 which would be his reference to begin his right turn and fly west over the Hwy 101. The danger with that comes in the form of how quickly the terrain rises on that southwest path he was on once he passed over the 101. If the ceiling had indeed dropped prior to him reaching the 101, he would have been required to descend in order to maintain his visual references. In the Louisiana oilfield, flights into lowering ceilings as you head out over the marsh and the Gulf is what we call Scud Running (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scud_running), and the helicopter pilots had to make sure that the layer didn't lower all the way to the surface. In some cases even a 180° turn could leave you trapped if the 'scud' also lowered in the area you came from.

Mr. Zobayan was an IFR pilot, yet he probably chose to make a VFR flight for several reasons. One is that he wouldn't need to get into the IFR system and be directed by controllers every step of the way for a relatively short flight to Thousand Oaks that he had made (possibly) hundreds of times. It's also possible that when they left Santa Ana the conditions may have looked a lot better than it actually turned out to be by the time they reached Glendale and was put in a holding pattern. He may have had a higher level of confidence as an IFR pilot knowing that his aircraft was also IFR rated and could revert to an IFR flight plan if needed.

However, if he did encounter some rapidly lowering ceilings as he approached his intersection of the 101, he may have relied on his instrument prowess to fly through the fog/low ceiling rather than to descend and watch for that highway now passing underneath him. At the speed that he was flying, even if he was only in IFR conditions for a few moments, he would have quickly reached the rapidly rising terrain and the eventual ridge that the S-76 impacted once he flew southwest past the point he needed to make an immediate right turn over the 101. In fact, the reports indicate that he was already flying too low to have been followed by the traffic radar.

So it appears that for whatever reason, Mr. Zobayan missed his turn and found his aircraft approaching a ridge of hills that he was not yet anticipating. The early evidence at the scene seems to indicate that he may have gotten a visual on the ridge in his flight path and stalled the rotor blades trying to pull up to avoid the impact. It will be a while before we receive the official word on why he continued flying southwest over the 101, but it seems obvious to me that he never saw it and didn't know that he had just passed over it moments earlier. If it were the flat marshes of Louisiana, he would have just made the course correction another mile or so and got his aircraft back on his intended route over that VFR highway. But he didn't have that luxury over the hills of Southern California. This tragedy may have simply been a case of being overly confident in his piloting skills.

 

[AmerVet]

RIP Kobe


I've flown in some commercial helicopters. Mostly on those little 2 person babies with no doors to take photos. It was fun. But I gotta say, there was at least one time on each trip where i saw my life flash in front of my eyes.

We had to be transported by helicopter from Kuwait to Um Qsar and I distinctly remember the feeling of falling and climbing through the sky. It was a terrifying feeling that I wasn't use to but the flight crew didn't seem bothered at all and it helped. I also went through occupational and physical therapy with senator Tammy Duckworth who landed her chopper after losing her legs to an RPG and she said panic is a no no for pilots. Still can't understand how she landed that sucker without the use of her legs, I thought your feet controlled parts of the Aircraft.

 

[DaveXA]

From the looks of this (along with several other articles with credible data) it appears that this pilot would have had no problem with making the flight from where he had been circling in a holding pattern over Glendale straight through to the 101 that would lead him to the Mamba Center in Thousand Oaks. Ara Zobayan, the S-76 pilot (although instrument rated) was flying under 'special VFR rules' for this flight even though the conditions were marginal at best. Under the rules governing his flight it was up to him to maintain visual references along his route in order to identify his position. After he was given clearance to proceed from the holding pattern he was asked to fly northwest using I-5 as as his reference (instead of due west) close to San Fernando before making a gradual turn to the west and then southwest. Under the Visual Flight Rules he would then fly southwest until he flew over the 101, then would turn right and follow the 101 as his visual reference into Thousand Oaks.

The idea of flying over a major highway as a VFR route provides two distinct advantages. One is that is is like being over a giant map... it's easy to see exactly where you are going as long as you fly below the cloud layer (which is required under visual flight rules). But the second (and most important in an area of quick elevation changes) is that the highways run between the high mountain ranges that are all over southern California.

So the problem with having to make the big loop around to the northwest and then back down to the intended flight path over the 101 is that in the event the pilot would encounter a thick patch of fog or a rapidly changing ceiling is that if he had temporarily been blanketed by a lowering ceiling or fog bank, he would have been blinded to 101 which would be his reference to begin his right turn and fly west over the Hwy 101. The danger with that comes in the form of how quickly the terrain rises on that southwest path he was on once he passed over the 101. If the ceiling had indeed dropped prior to him reaching the 101, he would have been required to descend in order to maintain his visual references. In the Louisiana oilfield flights into lowering ceilings as you head out over the marsh and the Gulf is what we call Scud Running (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scud_running), and the helicopter pilots had to make sure that the layer didn't lower all the way to the surface. In some cases even a 180° turn could leave you trapped if the 'scud' also lowered in the area you came from.

Mr. Zobayan was an IFR pilot, yet he probably chose to make a VFR flight for several reasons. One is that he wouldn't need to get into the IFR system and be directed by controllers every step of the way for a relatively short flight to Thousand Oaks that he had made (possibly) hundreds of times. It's also possible that when they left Santa Ana the conditions may have looked a lot better than it actually turned out to be by the time they reached Glendale and was put in a holding pattern. He may have had a higher level of confidence as an IFR pilot knowing that his aircraft was also IFR rated and could revert to an IFR flight plan if needed.

However, if he did encounter some rapidly lowering ceilings as he approached his intersection of the 101, he may have relied on his instrument prowess to fly through the fog/low ceiling rather than to descend and watch for that highway now passing underneath him. At the speed that he was flying, even if he was only in IFR conditions for a few moments, he would have quickly reached the rapidly rising terrain and the eventual ridge that the S-76 impacted once he flew southwest past the point he needed to make an immediate right turn over the 101. In fact, the reports indicate that he was already flying too low to have been followed by the traffic radar.

So it appears that for whatever reason, Mr. Zobayan missed his turn and found his aircraft approaching a ridge of hills that he was not yet anticipating. The early evidence at the scene seems to indicate that he may have gotten a visual on the ridge in his flight path and stalled the rotor blades trying to pull up to avoid the impact. It will be a while before we receive the official word on why he continued flying southwest over the 101, but it seems obvious to me that he never saw it and didn't know that he had just passed over it moments earlier. If it were the flat marshes of Louisiana, he would have just made the course correction another mile or so and got his aircraft back on his intended route over that VFR highway. But he didn't have that luxury over the hills of Southern California. This tragedy may have simply been a case of being overly confident in his piloting skills.

Nice post. Thanks for taking the time to explain. Makes a lot of sense.

 

[dd]

He was IFR rated in an IFR aircraft but that does you no good if you’re not on an IFR flight plan/clearance. It’s like driving a Corvette in downtown New York. In SoCal La you cannot expect to get an IFR clearance when you’re in the air on a VFR clearance. You can request it but if there’s other traffic the controller is going to instruct you to “maintain Vfr” until his workload and traffic allows. Now you could climb into the clouds and declare an emergency and they’ll give you an IFR clearance but as soon as you land you’ll need to explain why you didn’t file and there’s a good chance you won’t be flying until the FAA makes a decision.

 

[Bill]

He was IFR rated in an IFR aircraft but that does you no good if you’re not on an IFR flight plan/clearance. It’s like driving a Corvette in downtown New York. In SoCal La you cannot expect to get an IFR clearance when you’re in the air on a VFR clearance. You can request it but if there’s other traffic the controller is going to instruct you to “maintain Vfr” until his workload and traffic allows. Now you could climb into the clouds and declare an emergency and they’ll give you an IFR clearance but as soon as you land you’ll need to explain why you didn’t file and there’s a good chance you won’t be flying until the FAA makes a decision.

You are correct. In busy traffic it's not always possible to fit you into the system. But if the ceilings had gotten bad enough that he had chosen to ask for an IFR plan and was refused, it reasonable to conclude that he would have landed at an airport along his route and either resumed later or filed for an IFR plan to Thousand Oaks.

 

[Bill]

He was IFR rated in an IFR aircraft but that does you no good if you’re not on an IFR flight plan/clearance. It’s like driving a Corvette in downtown New York. In SoCal La you cannot expect to get an IFR clearance when you’re in the air on a VFR clearance. You can request it but if there’s other traffic the controller is going to instruct you to “maintain Vfr” until his workload and traffic allows. Now you could climb into the clouds and declare an emergency and they’ll give you an IFR clearance but as soon as you land you’ll need to explain why you didn’t file and there’s a good chance you won’t be flying until the FAA makes a decision.

I will also add that even though I am not instrument rated myself, we were still taught with some flight training under the hood, which would simulate the loss of outside visual references and train even a VFR pilot to trust his instruments to maintain orientation such as level wings and altitude corrections. That training once saved my life when flying at night in low visibility over Lake Pontchartrain. My reference regarding the S-76 pilot possibly having turned to using his instruments in the event of sudden IFR conditions is because I did that in the Cessna Skyhawk that I was flying and it would seem reasonable that Mr. Zobayan would have done the same.

 

[Saint Kamara]

From the looks of this (along with several other articles with credible data) it appears that this pilot would have had no problem with making the flight from where he had been circling in a holding pattern over Glendale straight through to the 101 that would lead him to the Mamba Center in Thousand Oaks. Ara Zobayan, the S-76 pilot (although instrument rated) was flying under 'special VFR rules' for this flight even though the conditions were marginal at best. Under the rules governing his flight it was up to him to maintain visual references along his route in order to identify his position. After he was given clearance to proceed from the holding pattern he was asked to fly northwest using I-5 as as his reference (instead of due west) taking him close to San Fernando before making a gradual turn to the west and then southwest. Under the Visual Flight Rules he would then fly southwest until he flew over the 101, then would turn right and follow the 101 as his visual reference into Thousand Oaks.

The idea of flying over a major highway as a VFR route provides two distinct advantages. One is that is is like being over a giant map... it's easy to see exactly where you are going as long as you fly below the cloud layer (which is required under visual flight rules). But the second (and most important in an area of quick elevation changes) is that the highways run between the high mountain ranges that are all over southern California.

So the problem with having to make the big loop around to the northwest and then back down to the intended flight path over the 101 is that in the event the pilot would encounter a thick patch of fog or a rapidly changing ceiling is that if he had temporarily been blanketed by a lowering ceiling or fog bank, he would have been blinded to 101 which would be his reference to begin his right turn and fly west over the Hwy 101. The danger with that comes in the form of how quickly the terrain rises on that southwest path he was on once he passed over the 101. If the ceiling had indeed dropped prior to him reaching the 101, he would have been required to descend in order to maintain his visual references. In the Louisiana oilfield, flights into lowering ceilings as you head out over the marsh and the Gulf is what we call Scud Running (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scud_running), and the helicopter pilots had to make sure that the layer didn't lower all the way to the surface. In some cases even a 180° turn could leave you trapped if the 'scud' also lowered in the area you came from.

Mr. Zobayan was an IFR pilot, yet he probably chose to make a VFR flight for several reasons. One is that he wouldn't need to get into the IFR system and be directed by controllers every step of the way for a relatively short flight to Thousand Oaks that he had made (possibly) hundreds of times. It's also possible that when they left Santa Ana the conditions may have looked a lot better than it actually turned out to be by the time they reached Glendale and was put in a holding pattern. He may have had a higher level of confidence as an IFR pilot knowing that his aircraft was also IFR rated and could revert to an IFR flight plan if needed.

However, if he did encounter some rapidly lowering ceilings as he approached his intersection of the 101, he may have relied on his instrument prowess to fly through the fog/low ceiling rather than to descend and watch for that highway now passing underneath him. At the speed that he was flying, even if he was only in IFR conditions for a few moments, he would have quickly reached the rapidly rising terrain and the eventual ridge that the S-76 impacted once he flew southwest past the point he needed to make an immediate right turn over the 101. In fact, the reports indicate that he was already flying too low to have been followed by the traffic radar.

So it appears that for whatever reason, Mr. Zobayan missed his turn and found his aircraft approaching a ridge of hills that he was not yet anticipating. The early evidence at the scene seems to indicate that he may have gotten a visual on the ridge in his flight path and stalled the rotor blades trying to pull up to avoid the impact. It will be a while before we receive the official word on why he continued flying southwest over the 101, but it seems obvious to me that he never saw it and didn't know that he had just passed over it moments earlier. If it were the flat marshes of Louisiana, he would have just made the course correction another mile or so and got his aircraft back on his intended route over that VFR highway. But he didn't have that luxury over the hills of Southern California. This tragedy may have simply been a case of being overly confident in his piloting skills.

Spot on.

Great explanation.

 

[Saint Kamara]

You are correct. In busy traffic it's not always possible to fit you into the system. But if the ceilings had gotten bad enough that he had chosen to ask for an IFR plan and was refused, it reasonable to conclude that he would have landed at an airport along his route and either resumed later or filed for an IFR plan to Thousand Oaks.

This is probably the case. A case of poor decision making.

 

[AmerVet]

Nice post. Thanks for taking the time to explain. Makes a lot of sense.

I think I learn More from this site than I do anywhere else. You guys are my unofficial teachers.

 

[DCSaints_Fan]

This may seem like a dumb question but why don’t pilots use GPS ?

 

[ArchiesGhost]

This may seem like a dumb question but why don’t pilots use GPS ?

Most aircraft now have a GPS sensor as part of the navigation suite. It is not magic.

As I said earlier and has now been confirmed, the pilot was trying to get through an area of the mountains on what is known as a "special VFR" clearance. Essentially this special ATC clearance allows the aircraft to continue in an area with in flight visibiity and cloud clearance that is less than what is required for normal VFR operations. Special VFR is common in the helicopter world.

He ran into an area of fog that reduced the visibility to the point where he decided the only safe course was up. The pilot started a climb and reached an altitude of about 2300 feet MSL before the helicopter descended very rapidly into the terrain.

This points to a few things. The first is the aircraft experienced a serious mechanical failure, possibly because the pilot was pushing it beyond its limits trying to get clear of the clouds. Being suddenly in a cloud (fog are clouds that touch the ground) in mountainous terrain can be a panic inducing moment.

Another possibility is spatial disorientation by the pilot resulting in loss of control. Again, the adrenaline inherent to the situation the pilot found himself in makes this a strong possibility as well. The sudden spike of adrenaline when suddenly confronted with a life or death situation in an aircraft is something one doesn't quite comprehend until it happens. It requires a very conscious effort to force yourself to overcome your natural instincts (run far away) and remain calm and focused on the task.

It may be a combination of mechanical failure leading to spatial disorientation.

It does not look like he simply hit a mountain due to lack of position awareness.

 

[Saint Kamara]

Simply an unnecessary tragedy.

 

[Bill]

Most aircraft now have a GPS sensor as part of the navigation suite. It is not magic.

As I said earlier and has now been confirmed, the pilot was trying to get through an area of the mountains on what is known as a "special VFR" clearance. Essentially this special ATC clearance allows the aircraft to continue in an area with in flight visibiity and cloud clearance that is less than what is required for normal VFR operations. Special VFR is common in the helicopter world.

He ran into an area of fog that reduced the visibility to the point where he decided the only safe course was up. The pilot started a climb and reached an altitude of about 2300 feet MSL before the helicopter descended very rapidly into the terrain.

This points to a few things. The first is the aircraft experienced a serious mechanical failure, possibly because the pilot was pushing it beyond its limits trying to get clear of the clouds. Being suddenly in a cloud (fog are clouds that touch the ground) in mountainous terrain can be a panic inducing moment.

Another possibility is spatial disorientation by the pilot resulting in loss of control. Again, the adrenaline inherent to the situation the pilot found himself in makes this a strong possibility as well. The sudden spike of adrenaline when suddenly confronted with a life or death situation in an aircraft is something one doesn't quite comprehend until it happens. It requires a very conscious effort to force yourself to overcome your natural instincts (run far away) and remain calm and focused on the task.

It may be a combination of mechanical failure leading to spatial disorientation.

It does not look like he simply hit a mountain due to lack of position awareness.

Very good explanation. I just learned about the late climbout along the final moments of his flight. In fact the pilot's apparent deliberate climb while flying southwest toward the 101 does bring into question his intention unless they discover for sure that the visibility had suddenly gone to zero at a critically low altitude. His experience with that area and his route to Thousand Oaks would have told him that he had to maintain certain altitude minimums in the area where he was flying and knew that he would have been safer to climb rather than to try to get below the scud if the ceiling was rapidly dropping.

A rapid (but not necessarily critical) descent in the final seconds of the flight may have indeed been a case of spatial disorientation or possibly 'chasing' a faulty reading on an instrument. Either way, unless they can find some mechanical reason for the descent, it may go on record as a CFIT accident. Controlled Flight Into Terrain. I haven't heard yet as to whether there was any sort of data recording equipment on board that S-76. That would certainly help to determine if it was a mechanical issue.

 

[Saint Kamara]

Any of you well-informed people can speak to that eyewitnesses account that this helicopter doesn't appear to have been going more than about 5 miles an hour when it hit the hillside?