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Kobe Bryant dies in helicopter crash


Sildani

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21 minutes ago, Mommar said:

There is a reason I have never trusted a Helicopter.

With a plane, it can still function with a single engine or if all failed still have a chance to glide to safety. With a helicopter, you're basically on a cage that's free falling and I also think much harder to control (when sh*t happens).

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1 hour ago, pafy6285 said:

With a plane, it can still function with a single engine or if all failed still have a chance to glide to safety. With a helicopter, you're basically on a cage that's free falling and I also think much harder to control (when sh*t happens).

Helicopters can do something similar (auto-rotation), but it's harder to control as I understand it.

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6 hours ago, pafy6285 said:

With a plane, it can still function with a single engine or if all failed still have a chance to glide to safety. With a helicopter, you're basically on a cage that's free falling and I also think much harder to control (when sh*t happens).

Helicopters can autorotate, ie glide, I fly both helicopters and airplanes, and I feel far more comfortable in a single engine helicopter that I can autorotate into someone’s backyard, than a single engine airplane that requires an open field to land in an emergency.  Just my two cents.  
 

At any rate (without any special knowledge of the incident outside the news) this seems to be a case of IIMC and CFIT.  The pilot most likely flew into the clouds, lost visual reference, and then flew a perfectly good aircraft into the ground.  Tragic and stupid.

Edited by levzloi
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So then would you call that incompetence of the pilot? Reports seem to read that they just circled the area just letting the fog get denser and denser changing from low altitude to higher getting further up into the clouds thinking they were following the freeway until they smacked into a hill. But also, shouldn't of there been some kind of radar or device to help or something? He frequently used his private helicopter for travels It just seems odd that this would happen in such a way. Also sad that it seems they were going to a basketball game and another parent and fellow team member of his daughter were there as well.

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https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-01-26/aircraft-slams-into-hillside-explodes-in-flames-near-calabasas

9 people perished:  Kobe, one of his daughters, the pilot, a male baseball coach, his wife and daughter, a female assistant coach, and another female and daughter.

Edited by sh9000
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9 hours ago, Hikuro said:

So then would you call that incompetence of the pilot? Reports seem to read that they just circled the area just letting the fog get denser and denser changing from low altitude to higher getting further up into the clouds thinking they were following the freeway until they smacked into a hill. But also, shouldn't of there been some kind of radar or device to help or something? He frequently used his private helicopter for travels It just seems odd that this would happen in such a way. Also sad that it seems they were going to a basketball game and another parent and fellow team member of his daughter were there as well.

I wouldn’t say incompetence, but very poor decision making, that was an expensive, nice and very capable helicopter, and they seemed to be trying to make an off airport landing in poor conditions.  Maybe the pilot felt pressure, maybe he was over confident, but those were not conditions I would personally fly in without an instrument flight plan unless somebody’s life was on the line. 

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Not a name that was widely known on my side of the pond but truly tragic events.

A civilian helicopter may have a radio altimeter or similar but probably unlikely it would have a “radar device”; I could be wrong as I don’t know civilian helicopters as well as military ones but radars are rare even on those. Throughout aviation history though there have been many, many cases of pilots losing “spatial orientation” when visual cues are eliminated, ignoring the evidence of their instruments and usually resulting in similar tragedies. A F-35 belonging to the JASDF, one of the most sophisticated aircraft on the planet, was lost recently possibly due to the pilot losing spatial orientation.

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46 minutes ago, levzloi said:

I wouldn’t say incompetence, but very poor decision making, that was an expensive, nice and very capable helicopter, and they seemed to be trying to make an off airport landing in poor conditions.  Maybe the pilot felt pressure, maybe he was over confident, but those were not conditions I would personally fly in without an instrument flight plan unless somebody’s life was on the line. 

Sounds like a case of get-home-it is.  The pilot was being pressured (internally or externally) to get the aircraft home.  This is the cause of a lot of crashes.  Racing the weather, passengers being demanding, even just general pilot fatigue.  I studied a number of crashes where that was basically the cited cause.  Heck even with JFK-Jr, though in that case there were numerous factors (distraction from passengers, flying IFR when he was only VFR rated, limited time in the aircraft, flying into a notoriously hard to get into airport, and vestibular spoofing due to lack of Visual input).  I will wait for the NTSB report.

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My prayers & condolences to his wife and family as well as everyone who lost their family members. For everyone that was on that helicopter ride, may you rest in peace.

This is truly a tragedy on many levels.

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I've seen several people post videos of the crash.  None of them are real, they're all of different crashes of completely different airframes.  Don't click on any of those links, you will just be helping unscrupulous liars.

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7 hours ago, Knight26 said:

Sounds like a case of get-home-it is.  The pilot was being pressured (internally or externally) to get the aircraft home.  This is the cause of a lot of crashes.  Racing the weather, passengers being demanding, even just general pilot fatigue.  I studied a number of crashes where that was basically the cited cause.  Heck even with JFK-Jr, though in that case there were numerous factors (distraction from passengers, flying IFR when he was only VFR rated, limited time in the aircraft, flying into a notoriously hard to get into airport, and vestibular spoofing due to lack of Visual input).  I will wait for the NTSB report.

Definitely agree, could be more going on, including material failure, but until the investigation is complete, that’s my guess.

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As a dad, I’m about ready to go off on these last few comments.

Understand, you got a family that lost both parents and a younger sister.  You also have a husband who now has to explain to his three elementary age kids that his wife/their mom is dead.  You have yet another family that has to bury a mom and her daughter.

And that’s not even mentioning the Bryant family’s losses.

You don’t like Kobe, fine.  But realize others died in this accident as well.

As a dad, it’s my hope that I never have to bury any of my kids.

I hope we all haven’t become so callous that you can’t empathize with those that now have to bury a child.  That’s bad enough.  But three of these families are going to have to bury MULTIPLE family members.

Let that sh*t sink in for minute, and imagine how you’d deal with that.

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6 hours ago, sqidd said:

Man who got paid million and millions of dollars to play a children's game dies. Top news story, nation in mourning. 

China kills it's own citizens to fill organ transplant orders for profit (Third Reich level evil) . It's never a story, and no one talks about it.

 

What the actual frakk dude? Jesus Christ.

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7 hours ago, Mog said:

As a dad, I’m about ready to go off on these last few comments.

Understand, you got a family that lost both parents and a younger sister.  You also have a husband who now has to explain to his three elementary age kids that his wife/their mom is dead.  You have yet another family that has to bury a mom and her daughter.

And that’s not even mentioning the Bryant family’s losses.

You don’t like Kobe, fine.  But realize others died in this accident as well.

As a dad, it’s my hope that I never have to bury any of my kids.

I hope we all haven’t become so callous that you can’t empathize with those that now have to bury a child.  That’s bad enough.  But three of these families are going to have to bury MULTIPLE family members.

Let that sh*t sink in for minute, and imagine how you’d deal with that.

No one said anything about not empathizing with the passengers / children aboard. The rapist however is another story, especially when not celebrating him would have literally erased the situation that caused the accident.

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