Inside Details Emerge On The Final Flight Of The Helicopter Carrying Kobe Bryant

Basketball legend Kobe Bryant was killed in a helicopter crash that killed another eight people. His 13-year-old daughter Gianna was among the victims, too. The helicopter crashed amid foggy conditions Sunday in California. It looped around several times, and also rapidly decelerated and accelerated during the final flight as confirmed by air traffic records.

The Sikorsky S-76B went off from John Wayne Airport in Santa Ana at 9:06 am at local time, ascending into a dense fog. The weather was so terrible that the Los Angeles Police Department and county sheriff’s department had to ground their helicopters.

Bryant’s helicopter maintained a steady pace for the first few minutes and traveled at an altitude of 700 feet and speed of 150 miles per hour as confirmed by a path posted by aircraft tracking website FlightAware.com.

Somewhere over Burbank, the helicopter’s speed halved to 75 miles per hour. The reconstruction of the flight path reveals that pilot Ara Zobayan had to circle several times in a bid to get his bearings.

The audio between Zobayan and air traffic control revealed an attempt to bring the helicopter down at the Burbank Airport. Air traffic controllers confirmed poor visibility over Burbank and the area.

The helicopter circled several times and resumed its northwesterly course, and then went back to 150 miles per hour. It ended up climbing to 1,500 feet.

The helicopter crash that killed Kobe

In the final moments of the deadly flight, the helicopter went south and traced a path along Las Virgenes Road in Calabasas. Zobayan had been cleared to fly under “special visual flight rules” to continue flying under conditions worse than those approved by standard visual flight rules.

Zobayan went to 2,000 feet at a speed of 185 miles per hour and then dropped to a rate of more than 4,000 feet per minute. The tracking was brought to an end at 9:45 a.m. The helicopter crashed into the steep hills of Calabasas, causing a quarter-acre brush fire. Nine people died in the crash, and the country mourns over the death of the great Kobe and his friends and daughter. We send our prayers to his wife and kids.

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