According to some new papers released earlier today, federal investigators believe that the pilot of Kobe Bryant’s helicopter was in fact descending at the time of the crash rather than ascending as he’d reported. As you probably know, the basketball legend, his 13 year old daughter and seven others, including the pilot himself, lost their lives in the helicopter crash back in January.
The pilot, Ara Zobayan, allegedly told air traffic controllers he was climbing up to 4,000 feet in order to fly above the clouds on the foggy day.
However, it’s now believed that the helicopter was in fact plunging down at that time, eventually crashing into a hillside.
This new information about the tragedy comes via the National Transportation Safety Board, which also declared that the pilot could have ‘misperceived’ the angles of descending and banking.
Apparently, that is something that can happen if a pilot gets disoriented during low visibility weather.
‘Calculated apparent angles at this time show that the pilot could have misperceived both pitch and roll angles. During the final descent the pilot, responding to (air traffic control), stated they were ‘climbing to 4 thousand,’’ the report reads.
Furthermore, not too long after the crash, experts did also theorize by looking at the flight’s path that Zobayan was most likely disoriented at the time the tragedy took place.
Despite the fact that the new documents contain 1,700 pages and compile factual reports, there is still no conclusive data on what exactly caused the crash.
This means that a final report that will make things clear is still to come.
Questions of whether the company took all the safety precautions based on the weather have been going around ever since the crash!
Did the pilot take into account the danger and still decided to fly the helicopter?
Zobayan apparently texted the people overseeing the flight about 45 minutes before takeoff, telling them the weather was ‘OK.’
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Richard Webb, owner of OC Helicopters, which coordinated the flight, agreed that was the case.
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