A helicopter pilot’s “spatial disorientation” played a key role in the crash that killed basketball legend Kobe Bryant, his daughter and several friends last year, federal authorities said Tuesday.
The 41-year-old Los Angeles Lakers icon Gianna Bryant, 13, and seven others died on a cloudy morning off the coast of Southern California on January 26 when their Sikorsky S-76B helicopter crashed into a hill in Calabasas. struck and the sports basketball worlds.
The accident also killed Payton Chester, 13; Sarah Chester (45); Alyssa Altobelli, 14; Keri Altobelli (46); John Altobelli (56); Christina Mauser, 38; and Ara Zobayan (50).
Zobayan was the main pilot of Island Express Helicopters and had 8,500 hours of flying experience and had about ten years of experience flying in the area where the vessel crashed, the National Transportation Safety Board said during a hearing outlining the probable cause of the crash. .
The pilot most likely had an episode ‘of spatial disorientation’, which Robert Sumwalt, chairman of the NTSB, described as’ the powerful, misleading sensations that can confuse a pilot on a visual flight and lose visual references. , and what types of training can be effective in dealing with countermeasures. this effect. ‘
“Unfortunately, we’ve seen this accident before,” said councilor Michael Graham. “Helicopters continue the VFR flight (visual flight rules) in meteorological conditions and unfortunately lose control of the aircraft due to spatial disorientation.”
The chairman regularly steered the previous owner of the Sikorsky S-76B with two pilots.
Although there was no mandate for Island Express Helicopters to use two pilots, Sumwalt insisted that two sets of trained eyes might have made a difference.
During Tuesday’s hearing, Sumwalt even told his own investigator who underestimated the proposal of two pilots, saying he had seen many “spatial disorientation” accidents that had some pilots at the helm.
“I would not agree with that,” Sumwalt said. He was a long-time pilot of US Airways before joining the NTSB.
“I think two pilots will increase the level of safety. I have flown with two pilots for a long time and in an airline environment you get the redundancy that if one pilot struggles, the other pilot will be able to sit back and say, ‘Wait a minute, you bank 30 degrees to the left and start descending. ‘”
While Zobayan encountered the marine layer that morning, the pilot apparently intervened against federal guidelines by flying into the fog, the NTSB said.
The pilot should have avoided ‘unfavorable weather’ and ‘led away, returned to base or landed the helicopter’, Graham said.
“And unfortunately the pilot did not do that,” Graham added.
An attorney for Island Express Helicopters could not be immediately reached for comment Tuesday.
It is also believed Zobayan put himself under ‘self-induced pressure’ to complete the journey because he had a long-standing relationship with Bryant.
Investigators said there was no evidence that Bryant or anyone else in the travel party put Zobayan under pressure that Sunday morning to complete the trip quickly.
