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Kobe Bryant, Daughter Gigi and 7 Others Dead in Helicopter Crash

liveanddiedeac said:
Explains why, rightly, ESPN was so slow to break the news. I don't care which side you're on, the media is out of control. Their desire to be the first to break stories has come too often at the expense of 1-accuracy, as often they don't even attempt to have solid facts before reporting and presenting something as true, and 2-as in this case, human decency. Why in the world not wait until it's confirmed that the families have been notified? That's not a time sensitive story, Kobe and 8 others were dead and waiting to make sure families didn't have to hear on the TV or radio wouldn't have changed that or made the story any less impactful.
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This is a much better take than what you had yesterday, when you posted four different times wondering why ESPN had not reported on this yet.

I am amazed how long the news went on that 5 died in the crash instead of 9.
 
It didn’t run out of gas, an expert did the math for that model of helicopter and the time spent in the air and the minimum amount of fuel left in the tank would have been 700lbs or so. He said that amount of that type of fuel would have been like a small bomb going off, explaining the size of the brush fire that was sparked.
 
Screamindemon3 said:
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So this eyewitness who sounds credible describes the helicopter as slowly hovering slowing, then slamming into the mountain. The espn article mentions them crashing going 184 mph and descending at a rate of 4000 feet per minute I believe. 184 mph seems pretty fast for a helicopter. The guy in the video also mentioned he didn’t think the helicopter was in distress and believed he was just disoriented. Another article reports hearing sputtering of the engine. Not sure what to believe.
 
How much would the thick fog have dampened the sound of the crash? The witness in that video said it sounded mostly like fiberglass crunching, but it had to have exploded to an extent. I feel like the majority of the sound was muffled by the thick fog. Someone who is smarter than me could scientifically explain whether I’m right or wrong though..
 
zqglass said:
How much would the thick fog have dampened the sound of the crash? The witness in that video said it sounded mostly like fiberglass crunching, but it had to have exploded to an extent. I feel like the majority of the sound was muffled by the thick fog. Someone who is smarter than me could scientifically explain whether I’m right or wrong though..
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I don't have experience with dense fog explosions, but I do have experience with vehicle and aircraft explosions. It's nothing like in the movies, more of a big whoosh type sound. The crash would have definitely been louder than the fuel explosion due to a ruptured fuel tank.

A BLEVE would be very loud, but that requires a lengthy amount of fire impingement on a semi sealed vessel.
 
Bears and Deacs said:
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deacvision7 said:
I clicked on TMZ's story yesterday

But that was before I realized the next of kin had not been notified.


I'll personally never click on their site again as a result if those are their standards.



These are people. And these people have families and loved ones. Rushing to get the news out DOES NOT SUPERSEDE the civic authorities notifying the next of kin of the tragedy so that the surviving members don't have to see it on their fucking Twitter feed. And all it costs is a couple hours of clicks.


Fuck TMZ. All all their ilk. Never again will I click on their site.
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qcdeac said:
This is a much better take than what you had yesterday, when you posted four different times wondering why ESPN had not reported on this yet.

I am amazed how long the news went on that 5 died in the crash instead of 9.
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Guilty as charged. What puzzled me was CNN, Fox, etc. were also reporting the crash well before ESPN did and if they were doing that prior to the families being notified, they're as bad as TMZ.
 
liveanddiedeac said:
Guilty as charged. What puzzled me was CNN, Fox, etc. were also reporting the crash well before ESPN did and if they were doing that prior to the families being notified, they're as bad as TMZ.
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Fuck all of them.

Humanity is more important than clicks/ratings.
 
like, I'm with you that it's p fucked for family members to learn about the death of their loved ones (admittedly an international superstar) on the news but maybe turn some of the anger toward the system that incentivizes such actions too? e.g. don't [just] hate the player, hate the game [too]?
 
deacvision7 said:
Fuck all of them.

Humanity is more important than clicks/ratings.
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I couldn’t help but think of the day that Skip died and the remarkable restraint of everyone involved to hold the news until Nancy could be found and notified.
 
Minideac said:
I couldn’t help but think of the day that Skip died and the remarkable restraint of everyone involved to hold the news until Nancy could be found and notified.
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Human decency.

It really isn't hard.
 
RJKarl said:
Given where they going and returning. I wouldn't be surprised if the helicopter would have waited. It's kind of unlikely that it would have been booked for another party in between dropping Kobe's off and returning unless the tournament was scheduled for going into the evening.

Kobe used to take a helicopter to games which made a lot of sense. The traffic would have been miserable. Getting there with less stress would have been a benefit.
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As I understand it the helicopter belonged to Kobe. It would have waited on him.

I spent 4 years in Army Aviation units flying two or three times a week. Most of the time I was in a Huey, Blackhawk or Bell Jet Ranger. None of the pilots who flew me would have taken off in that mess. Even the police helicopters were grounded. I DON'T KNOW MORE THAN ANYONE ELSE ON THIS FORUM about this accident but my guess is that the pilot got disoriented and flew into the hillside.

If the pilot ran out of fuel he could have autorotated to the ground safely so I don't think fuel was the problem.

I guess we will see.
 
gfspencer said:
As I understand it the helicopter belonged to Kobe. It would have waited on him.

I spent 4 years in Army Aviation units flying two or three times a week. Most of the time I was in a Huey, Blackhawk or Bell Jet Ranger. None of the pilots who flew me would have taken off in that mess. Even the police helicopters were grounded. I DON'T KNOW MORE THAN ANYONE ELSE ON THIS FORUM about this accident but my guess is that the pilot got disoriented and flew into the hillside.

If the pilot ran out of fuel he could have autorotated to the ground safely so I don't think fuel was the problem.

I guess we will see.
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It's very possible that Kobe owned and then leased it for others to use. While playing, he'd have used it 50-100 times/year which makes owning sensible. Leasing it out would have been easy for him.

Besides being close to his in-laws, living in Pelican Hill then Newport Coast made a lot of sense for buying the helicopter. It would avoid the traffic and get him to games quickly. Most of the players live on the Westside (Beverly Hills, Marina, Bel Air, Encino, etc.) and would take them longer to get to Staples Center than Kobe's decision.
 
I keep reading that the helicopter was owned by a company called Island Express, Inc. and was previously owned by the state of Illinois. It was purchased by Island Express in 2015 for $515k. It was a 1991 model helicopter.

I guess Kobe could have leased it from Island Express full time, but that doesn't seem likely. It seems more likely that he just used the service when he needed it. But I really have no idea. I really would have thought it would be the other way around - that he owned a helicopter and leased it out when he wasn't using it.
 
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