Reopening the Kobe Bryant crash thread... 1

[JohnRBaker]

The original thread covering the crash that took the life of Kobe Bryant and his daughter, and others, has been closed...

https://www.eng-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=463885

...so I'm starting this thread because there's some new news.

Anyway, recent reports have come out that the helicopter pilot was not cleared to fly in bad weather. On the day of the crash, he had been given clearance under 'visual flight rules' only, but there was bad weather and it was while flying through a cloud bank that it appears that the pilot became disoriented, which resulted in the crash:

Kobe Bryant Crash Pilot Disoriented In Clouds, Agency Says

Pilot Ara Zobayan had nearly broken through the clouds when the helicopter banked abruptly and plunged into the hills below, killing all aboard.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/kobe-bryant-crash-investigation_n_6022a78bc5b6d78d444a13e0

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without

 

[1503-44]

As I recall, VFR does not allow flying into clouds and that you maintain clearance distances to them as well as constant visual contact with the ground.

 

[JohnRBaker]

That's the point that I was trying to make, if the pilot had been cleared only for a VFR flight, what was he doing flying through the clouds?

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without

 

[Spartan5]

This forum is an unusual catch all for bad news which engineers might find interesting and enjoy discussing. It should just be the Failures and Disasters Forum.

Not a complaint, just an observation.

 

[1503-44]

I like it. Name it "bad news which engineers might find interesting and enjoy discussing" forum.
Then we could also have a "good news which engineers might find interesting and enjoy discussing" forum.

JohnR,
Lots of wings hanging on St Peter's gates are wondering the same.

I must admit I was flying VFR when an overcast suddenly appeared underneath, except for one hole just large enough for me to spirally descend through and below. Fortunately there was still enough clearance and height of cloud over ground to let me get to the nearest airport under VFR. Water vapor sometimes spontaneously condenses into fog and clouds with minimal temperature change, especially near hills and mountains during high humidity atmospheres. The worst place for that to happen.

 

[SnTMan]

...if the pilot had been cleared only for a VFR flight, what was he doing flying through the clouds?

As I recall this was discussed at least peripherally in the original thread. An affliction sometimes called "get-there-itis".

The problem with sloppy work is that the supply FAR EXCEEDS the demand

 

[LittleInch]

JB - I know you like huff post, but that snippet is next to useless.

If you had read the previous thread or the ntsb reports you might understand better.

Here is the summary from the ntsb

https://www.ntsb.gov/news/events/Documents/2021-BMG-DCA20MA059-BMG-abstract.pdf

and the summary from the news release is here.

https://www.ntsb.gov/news/press-releases/Pages/NR20210209.aspx

The flight started under VFR and the company was not allowed to fly on IFR, but during the flight the conditions changed and the pilot decided to continue, climb ( he was apparently cleared for IFR, but may not have been flying that way for a while) into what the aviation boys call "into Instrument Meteorological Conditions" or IMC. You or me would call it "flying into a cloud"... his aim was to break through the low cloud so that the radar from the airport could find him and tell him where to go.

Then with the sudden loss of the true horizon, he seems to have got disorientated and failed to transit to the artificial horizon on his flights controls - which to be fair to his memory is reported as being very difficult to do - thought he was flying level and straight up through the cloud, but was actually in an increasing diving turn to the left which he didn't notice until it was too late and he had a windscreen full of hillside.

The issue is a known one of pressure to complete the flight, either from the client, the company or just his own desire to complete the flight - they call it "plan continuation bias" - and apparently a lack of a pre planned plan B. You can see this happening in so many incidents where people continue to plough on disregarding alarms, not believing what the instruments are telling them, disregarding changing situations and become tunnel vision focussed on reaching the destination / end point.







Remember - More details = better answers
Also: If you get a response it's polite to respond to it.

 

[1503-44]

The first IFR lesson a student pilot gets is "Always Believe your Instruments". You close your eyes while the instructor nearly does a loop and says open your eyes. You throw up as you try to figure out how you got there by only flying straight and level. If you still don't believe the instruments, he does it again. Hard lesson to forget. However get-there-itis can be quite compelling at times.

 

[CWB1]

Eh, this subforum and the pub have become reminiscent of FB - places for hot air to hear itself talk on everything unrelated to engineering. Getting rid of both would be a huge improvement.

The man was a professional pilot flying a multi-million dollar bird, not your neighbor’s Cessna so no need to continue vilifying.

 

[1503-44]

Or it could be all the more reason. Professionals are supposed to be trustworthy enough not to make amature mistakes.

And, sorry, you are entitled to your opinion, but you also do not have to be here if you'd rather be doing something else.

 

[CWB1]

Amateur mistakes? So you’re continuing to speculate and denigrate the dead?

 

[dik]

I don't think it was a cloud he collided with...

Rather than think climate change and the corona virus as science, think of it as the wrath of God. Feel any better?

-Dik

 

[dik]

I've done a bit of flying in a chopper (not a pilot) and I can see how easy it is to get disoriented... he may have made an error at the wrong time... but, occasionally accidents do happen... sorry for all of them...

Rather than think climate change and the corona virus as science, think of it as the wrath of God. Feel any better?

-Dik

 

[1503-44]

The general consensus appears to be that he got caught in the clouds and couldn't find an easy way out. I have no further information. If you do, please share. In any case, I belive a truely professional pilot would most likely say, "The weather looks like a risk that I am not prepared to expose you to and I intend to sit right here until I think it looks better. If you have to be somewhere, I suggest you inquire at the car rental office right over there." Every pilot I know has at one time or another waited many hours, if not several days, for clear enough weather to make a safe flight.

Not saying this happened here, but statistically these weather related accidents happen most often, not to inexperienced pilots, but those with just enough experience to think they have developed excellent flying skills, more than adequate to see them through marginal conditions, not thinking there is a very real possibility the conditions might worsen enroute. They concentrate on the known skill set variables and their known capabilities, but forget to take into account the other uncontrollable variables, which at times can be a bigger advantage than knowing how to fly well in itself. I'm still here.

 

[Alistair_Heaton]

These Loss of control incidents are not uncommon in fact they are very common. I don't disagree with what you say about what a pilot should say. The air taxi world is cut throat and there will always be anther pilot to take your job.

I think there is a fatality every 45 days in the HEMS rotary air ambulance world in the USA. Most of them due to weather related or at night loss of control.

VFR is a a lot higher work load in my opinion than IFR I haven't flown VFR in 10 years. I am fixed wing though.

 

[LittleInch]

CWB1,

It's not clear which poster or post you're referring to. By the time you respond another post may have been made.

I don't disagree about the pub, that's got a bit toxic recently but maybe that matches the mood of the US at the moment.

But this forum I think works very well. The miami bridge thread the combined thought proved found what is generally taken to be the issue after about 4 weeks.

This thread is using, at least from my view, the considered view of the NTSB. I'm not vilifying or denigrating the pilot, but trying to understand what he clearly didn't do correctly otherwise he wouldn't have crashed. Learning from incidents like this help everyone prevent the next one.

Was it a engineering design issue or a human issue? Probably a bit of both, but the pilot gets it 90% of the time.

Remember - More details = better answers
Also: If you get a response it's polite to respond to it.

 

[1503-44]

At the end of the day, flying skills are only as good as your judgment.

 

[Rabbit12]

Terrible accident. I'm sure a mistake or mistakes were made by the pilot but I'm sure he thought we was making the right call. I don't think he intended to kill himself that day.

The part that makes me sick is Kobe's widow filing monetary lawsuits. My goodness, how much money does she need? Kobe made more than enough in his life for her to live in luxury for the rest of hers and her children. But then again I'm not a greedy SOB and I almost want to throw up when I see ambulance chaser lawyer commercials on TV.

 

[IRstuff]

It's not always about the money, but getting some measure of closure and perceived "justice" in the form of financial punishment of the perceived guilty parties. I think, if prompted, she would agree to donate any money that she actually gets

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert!

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[1503-44]

I admire your lack of greed, however consider how you might feel if you were in her shoes, heaven forbid. Anyway, she, as you, I and everyone else, is/are entitled to legally fight for what we think we deserve under those circumstances and I suspect that you know as much about their financial situation as I do, so is there any real traction here.