On January 26 th, the world lost a legendary basketball player, Kobe, in an unseen helicopter crash.
Two weeks after the crash, there has been detailed reports about the timeline of the disaster.
Kobe and his daughter, Gianna, were scheduled to arrive at the Mamba Sports Academy for the second day of two-day tournament Gianna was playing in.
On the day of the crash, Kobe, Giana, and seven other people – Payton Chester, Sarah Chester, Alyssa Altobelli, Keri Altobelli, John Altobelli, Christina Mauser, Ara Zobayan . Arrived at John Wayne Airport
around 9 a.m.
Scheduled to take a 79-mile trip down to Camarillo for the basketball tournament.
The weather they flew in was poor with low-hanging clouds, hindering the pilot’s visibility. Although, the pilot flying Kobe and the eighth others, Ara Zobayan, was an instrumented-rated pilot – meaning he was trained to fly in fog.
Since there was no other option for Kobe – the tournament started at 12 p.m. – the helicopter took off in the dense fog at 9:06 a.m.
Unfortunately, The Fog And Other Circumstances Were Not Calculated
At 9:20 a.m., an air traffic controller at Burbank Airport was in contact with the pilot to clarify he was able to fly with cloud tops at 2,400.
After being granted permission to fly in the San Fernando Valley along interstate 100, Kobe’s helicopter requested assistance from air traffic control to help guide them through the fog.
At 9:39 a.m., the air traffic controller at Burbank Airport informed the pilot he could turn left to follow interstate 101, and that he should contact Southern California Terminal Radar Approach Control (SCTRAC).
After contacting them, the pilot informs SCTRAC they were heading toward Camarillo at 1,500, which SCTRAC tries to make clear they would lose radio
contact. A few moments later, the signal was lost.
At 9:45 a.m., the flight was reported to have made contact with SCTRAC, who tell him to state why he is flying in a restricted airspace.
But before he could reply, contact was lost again. Accoridng to the radar, the helicopter rose to 2,300 feet and then dropped down to 1,200 feet at 180 miles an hour.
Two minutes later at 9:47 a.m., the crash was reported to local police, who later identified the bodies of Kobe, Gianna and the seven others.
