That is really good. The comments are great too. This news has all been shocking but also the coverage has been predictably oversaturated.
what the person said was that the copter was making a slow left turn. the word “hovering” was used to describe a slow search pattern.
All that is consistent with a deviation from rt 101 and a turn/climb which would make sense. if you have hills around you it makes sense to slow your forward movement and climb to avoid terrain.
The ear-witness also described a fully functioning machine that wasn’t in distress so mechanical failure is probably not the cause. It’s looking more and more like disorientation. If the pilot was in a roll without any visual reference points and was distracted with the radio then the ear-witness’s 20 second estimate is close to the time I calculated in the descent from 2400 ft to 830 ft at 4000 fpm.
At the time the pilot made that left turn, they were moving along at 120+ knots, more than 140 mph. Hardly a slow search pattern.
I would assume that a helicopter would have a terrain database loaded into the GPS. If it’s not something found in certified panels then it’s easily added to personal equipment. the subscription costs are negligible and the information it provides is substantial for anyone flying at low levels or in in mountainous conditions.
your cite is a minute by minute playback. If you go to the second to last minute you’ll see ground speed of a 110 knots at an altitude of 2125. At that point it was in a climb which explains the reduced horizontal speed (ground speed). a minute later the altitude is 1500 feet with a ground speed of 156 knots.
the ear-witness talked about a 20 second flyover.
From things I’ve read on Reddit, sounds like the pilot hit a cloud bank. Normally when flying VFR, you’re supposed to go UP until you’re at a safe altitude, then figure things out (one option being, sometimes, to switch to IFR, which requires getting permission for a new flight plan).
Instead (or, after trying this), the pilot flew DOWN, hoping to get under the clouds and regain visual orientation by looking at the ground. (Or, his upward climb was so abrupt, he lost control of the chopper, and it started to descend, as he lost orientation as well).
The mistake was possibly compounded by his thinking he was in a particular place with flatter, lower-elevation terrain, but had lost the path of Highway 101, and wasn’t at that place.
It may have also been compounded by his flying faster than usual into those clouds — trying to make up for 15 minutes of lost time during a routine holding pattern (due to traffic) earlier in the flight.
When the conclusions are in, I suspect this will be a major factor. I’ve wondered if the pilot, wanting to please his VIPs, was trying to prioritize speed and getting his special passengers to their destinations ASAP over basic, fundamental safety. I wonder whether the pilot started flying faster and started making decisions faster while flying faster. A deadly combination.
The thing is, a modern GPS-driven moving map display gives the pilot +/- a couple of feet. He should be centered on rt101. Even if a panel mount GPS has a small display you can zoom in on what you’re tracking. this was a VERY nice helicopter. The panel should be state-of-the-art. If for any reason you lose satellite signal then plan-B is to climb and climb some more until you’re completely above everything. In a helicopter you can pretty much do that straight up.
Fog + “I’m tired of waiting — let’s just get a move-on” = Tenerife
I’m reading that this was Kobe’s exclusive pilot. Although apparently well trained, I’m guessing that he was not in the business of telling his client “no” when they were planning a trip. Pilots have warned me about the risk of an “I can make it” mentality in the face of bad weather conditions.
Kobe gave an interview a few years ago where he talked about using the helicopter because it gave him more access to his kids, since he could bypass sitting in traffic.
Wow, that’s tragic, in the deep, Ancient-Greek-play sense of the word.
I actually know someone who use to fly celebrities around. There is truth to the idea that pilots are encouraged to push things to the limit. That would explain the VFR skud run down RT 101. But it appears that the pilot had realized he couldn’t continue this and was attempting to climb out of a bad situation. If there was a second pilot onboard then they could have divided up the flying tasks and it wouldn’t have gotten out of control. When you’re 23 seconds away from hitting something and you’re attention has been diverted for 30 seconds then…
Thank you. I could look them up myself but that’s the point: I shouldn’t have to.
That’s kinda what I see here based on the limited info.
Keep in mind, the pilot is Mamba’s employee, in a sense. He’s got VIPs. He thinks he’s got mad pilot skills and he wants to equal Kobe’s on the court skills.
When a basketball player fucks up, you lose points, maybe you lose a game, and maybe you even lose a championship.
When a pilot fucks up…it’s game over - forever.
I think this is the story.
The pilot wanted to impress Kobe - and his VIP passengers.
They paid the ultimate price.
Mind you, this is the same mentality that has led to aviation disasters. Look up the NW flight in Detroit 1987 or the AA flight in Arkansas in 1999. Crews trying to be on time, rushing the process, skipping steps, making very basic but life-death decisions hastily…and paying the ultimate price.
I’ve seen and can’t find the more gradual ADSB data, so I posted the FR24 data as an example. In any case, at no point does the helicopter slow to anything close to under a hundred knots during the final turn.
My point is that the earwitness is not reliable. His statement in part is as follows…
“It was almost directly above us in this parking lot or these condominiums here, moving very slowly, maybe 3, 4, 5 miles per hour, so it was in hover - search and hover…”
That’s the statement that witness made that I’m saying cannot be accurate, that’s all.
I listened to the communications and at at least one point the controller asks the helicopter to report when back in VFR conditions. So yeah, I think the controllers were assuming this was intended to get through poor visibility and then back to true VFR.
I came across an interesting conversation about “normalization of deviance” in the middle of a Reddit thread and saved the comment, Of course I can’t find the context right now, but this local (to the SFV pilot said this…
So it sounds like there’s what you and I know about the intent of SVFR, and there’s the reality of what it’s become for some pilots with major pressure to complete the flight.
Yep. Everything I’ve ready indicates this crash was caused by “normalization of deviance”, also known as “slowly boiling the frog”. The client and the pilot slowly increase their tolerance of risk and never notice they have, until the one unlucky time they pay more than they ever intended.
You might think “I’m not some superstar who’s become used to pushing their luck because they’ve led a charmed life”, but every person does this, all the time. Better hope that where you’re doing it the worst consequence isn’t lethal. Humans need immediate feedback in order to change their behavior and are absolutely terrible at comprehending risk.
As a perpetual student pilot, this is one of the things that frightens me the most. I know that I can be susceptible to this kind of thinking. I can look back to several times I drove through worsening winter conditions, telling myself on a continuous loop, “I made it this far, I can go a little farther. I must be almost through this. It would be worse to turn back. I need to get where I’m going.”