I am an experienced helicopter pilot in SoCal familiar with crash area. Ask me anything.

There are many questions without answers here.

1) Why was the flight attempted VFR when ceilings throughout the LA Basin and San Fernando Valley were a pretty consistent 1,000 ft?

There was no reason to expect to be able to get to Thousand Oaks, which is surrounded by much higher terrain.
These are the reported weather conditions available when the aircraft departed John Wayne airport (KSNA)

Airport. Viz. Ceiling
KSNA 4sm 1,000 ft Overcast
KSLI. 4sm. 1,000 ft Overcast
KFUL. 3sm. 700 ft Overcast
KBUR. 3sm. 1,100 ft Overcast
KVNY. 2.5sm. 1,100 ft Overcast

2) Why did they not land at Van Nuys when it was discovered that weather conditions had not improved enough to continue VFR to Thousand Oaks?

Flying a VIP is a stressful undertaking. There is the perception that their time and needs outweigh other concerns and it induces stress and pressure, sometimes self-induced pressure to complete the flight as planned. They were probably already late due to earlier delays.

There is a deep psychological component to this that is never discussed and you probably won’t hear from media or even expert commentators: Pilots are very mission-oriented and it’s part of our psyche to “get the job done.” This is hard-wired in the pilot brain. One way I’ve found to relieve this pressure is to always have a backup plan in place to get the client to their destination when weather conditions are marginal.

What they could have done here is to have a Limo or Van standing by at Van Nuys airport to drive the remainder of the way if weather had not improved and left enough spare time to remain on schedule. Van Nuys is a hub of corporate aviation and Limo are available 24/7.

3) Why didn’t the pilot fly the flight IFR, as he is reported to have been instrument rated?

This question remains to be answered. Every FAR Part 135 operator has Operations Specifications which detail their allowances and restrictions granted by the FAA individually. Each operator is different. I’m not familiar with Island Express’ Ops Specs and it’s not publicly available. Island Express has not operated S76’s very long and the majority of their operations are VFR commuter flights between Long Beach and Catalina Island. It’s likely that the operator did not have authority to conduct Single Pilot IFR (SPIFR) in this aircraft, even though the pilot is instrument rated.

If this flight request had been given to me today with the conditions observed 26 Jan 0900, especially the OVC007 at KUL, I would have planned the flight IFR:

1) IFR from KSNA to KCMA: Camarillo is closer to the Mamba Academy than Van Nuys and the routing for IFR is direct on this route. The routing for Van Nuys takes you quite out of the way and is often vectored for other traffic.
2) Have a vehicle waiting at Camarillo to drive the remainder of the way
3) This IFR routing takes the flight almost directly over the Mamba Academy and the IFR clearance could be cancelled and a landing made under VFR if the weather is found to be clear. The Limo is then cancelled. Perhaps there’s a standby fee, but I doubt that would have been an issue. There is no helipad near the address of Mamba Academy so I don’t know what arrangements were/have been made for landing there. The closest weather reporting to T-Oaks is Camarillo on the west and Van Nuys on the east. Neither location accurately depicts conditions in T-Oaks. It is not uncommon that T-Oaks is clear when either side is low VFR/IFR. Alternately, it is not uncommon for T-Oaks to be low fog when either side is clear. T-Oaks sits in a bowl, which can produce its own weather.

I believe the pilot’s quoted time of 8,000 hours was in all aircraft. I would be surprised if he had more 100 hours in the S76 type.

Cheers. Say Hey to your uncle and thank him for his service. I read his bio on the website.

Last radar data shows a speed of 184 mph and 4,000 feet per minute rate of descent, consistent with a steep dive.

Cause of death would have been instantaneous from Traumatic injury from rapid deceleration impact, with extremely high G-forces. No one survived the impact or suffered pain in any way.

Unfortunately, the 30 second ride through the clouds, with the initial pitch up and subsequent dive would have been terrifying.

I thought that this flight was owned by a charter service, not Kobe’s personal copter.
[link to heavy.com (secure)]

How do you crash into into anything not vertical (like a building) if there's a radar altitude indicator which would indicate a mountain base once you start to go over the initial part of the mountain?

I believe you are correct, that the aircraft’s registered owner is Island Express Holding Company and that the EX suffix on their N-number is consistent with other aircraft in their fleet.

There were reports that Kobe owned this aircraft at one time, but the FAA registration data gives 2015 as the registration date, which coincides with the purchase from Illinois, so it’s unlikely that Kobe ever owned the aircraft, unless the funds were provided by Kobe in the original purchase.

Operators sometimes utilize privately-owned aircraft that are “leased-back” to the operator. Owners are often granted priority or on-demand usage of the aircraft. It could have been this type of arrangement between Kobe and Island Express, which could still have shown as registered to Island Express for Part 135, exclusive-use purposes.

These types of arrangements blur the lines between Part 91 and Part 135 operations. It basically comes down to whether the flight was “for-hire” (Part 135), as in the client pays a company for each flight taken, or private operations (Part 91) where the pilot acts as private employee of the client and no one on board pays for the flight.

The simple answer is that there is too much going wrong at once to utilize the radar altimeter, which is not the primary attitude instrument at that time.


In Visual conditions, all of your flight inputs are made utilizing visual reference and keeping the aircraft in a desired attitude, with only casual interest in Kinesthetic sensory inputs or vestibular (inner ear) sensations.

When visual reference is sudden removed, there is rapid spatial disorientation that occurs and kinesthetic and vestibular sensations are incorrectly interpreted as they relate to aircraft attitude. It is common to instinctively pitch up rapidly as a defense mechanism and then over compensating while pitching back down, entering a dive.

What needs to happen immediately is the pilot’s attention needs to transition from outside visual reference to Inside instrument reference, specifically the Attitude indicator, and bring the aircraft back to “wings-level”

At this time the aircraft can be turned away from know terrain and power applied to climb to a safe altitude.

It has to be done in that order, though. Applying power or attempting to turn while in an unusual attitude will only worsen the condition.

The steps to IIMC recovery are:
Attitude
Heading
Power
Airspeed

The Radalt is useful after the aircraft has achieved stability, but will indicate the rapidly changing variations in terrain below you as your cross mountainous terrain.

What is more useful Is an HTAWS display (Helicopter Terrain Awareness and Warning System), which color-codes surrounding terrain in relation to your position. Red is what you’ll hit.

One valuable strategy when flying in marginal weather conditions is to fly the aircraft with the autopilot engaged, even if you’re hand flying at the time. If the time comes that you encounter IIMC, as long as your airspeed does not drop below Vmini (minimum Autopilot speed), the autopilot can stabilize the aircraft.

Helicopter autopilots have a “go-around” button that depending on aircraft and autopilot will at the very least, level the wings, but may introduce a climb attitude and even pull climb power when appropriate in some of the more sophisticated autopilots.

pilot vertigo.

up feels like down.

body and mind is saying one thing while gauges and inst panels scream another.

common seat of the pants reaction when flying along the nape of the earth in low viz conditions

Last Edited by SyncAsFunk on 01/28/2020 03:55 PM

cool thread. Five stars to offset the Bandit.

How would pilot selection & maintenance be handled if it was Part 91? Is that relevant?

Thanks for the thorough explanation btw!! Very informative thread.

The problem with your version of what happened is that it requires that the heli was in clear skies with good visibility and then went into clouds or fog suddenly. But, you posted the following above:

KSNA 4sm 1,000 ft Overcast
KSLI. 4sm. 1,000 ft Overcast
KFUL. 3sm. 700 ft Overcast
KBUR. 3sm. 1,100 ft Overcast
KVNY. 2.5sm. 1,100 ft Overcast

There were no clear skies anywhere. So, I think your are full of it.

Yes, Part 91 is a definitely a lower bar for pilot qualification and maintenance requirements, if you are just complying with those statutes, which only require an annual inspection and private pilot certificate.

It’s unlikely, though.

Even if Kobe’s flight was operated as a Part 91 flight, the aircraft would be maintained to Part 135 standards, since the company would use it for other charter business. The pilot would also be listed under the company’s 135 certificate and train to those standards for the same reason.

Since the S76B is under 12,500 lbs max gross weight, the pilot was not required to hold an ATP and acquire a type-rating in the aircraft. The commercial pilot certificate was sufficient.

Because-rich celebrity.

No, there is no requirement to be in clear skies. The requirement is to be operating below the ceiling (or overcast layer) by an appropriate margin with at least the minimum visibility.

Did the Sikorsky S76B have IFR capability? Why was thing even flying VFR in such low visibility? This whole event is fishy.

Last Edited by UseLessRepEATER on 01/28/2020 05:53 PM

great thread. thanks op

[link to heavy.com (secure)]

Yes, the S76B is a fully IFR aircraft in single or dual-pilot configuration. I’ve not flown the S76, but I’m told it’s a very good IFR aircraft. The cockpit photo shows a partial-glass cockpit, meaning digital displays of some instruments and older “steam gauges” for other instruments. You can also identify the dual Autopilot Control Modules and Flight Directors necessary for flight coupled to the autopilot.

Newer aircraft are full-glass cockpits, which incorporate all of the flight instruments into digital display screens.

By the aircraft’s very design you can tell it was built to fly IFR. Its extremely large instrument panel sacrifices forward and downward visibility for IFR instrumentation.

Last Edited by MaxTork on 01/28/2020 08:35 PM

This was on Sunday, a low traffic day. How much time was actually going to be saved.

Damn.
Tail rotor failure puts it into uncontrolled spin.
Will flip one over if it happens on the ground.

Doesn't add up. Witnesses on the ground said the helicopter was flying extremely low - approx. 100 feet above their house which rattled the walls and windows. While reports say that the pilot did a climb to attempt to get above the clouds/fog. Same reports also state there was a rapid dive. Why would he climb only to dive? And at a fast rate of speed - 180 mph.
Now if you can't see, are disoriented due to thick fog - you still know UP and DOWN. You may not know west, south, north or east but you still know UP and DOWN and FAST vs SLOW.

Vertigo does not explain the rate of speed. He was hauling ass at 180mph. Why? Vertigo and fog don't account for that.

don't these choppers have radar that shows where they are in relationship to the ground, like a video screen in your car?

if they don't they should

I'm confused. Are you saying that at 900 feet at ?KSNA? the visibility was good? What does 4sm mean? What is KSNA anyway? I am confused why you think going up into a cloud you saw ahead of time would cause someone to freak out.

My wife has never been in a helicopter but she said the pilot had a heart attack.

He was under a lot of stress, they were running late, he had celebrities on board, it was foggy and he couldn't see and his heart seized up.

What do you think?

First about witness statements:
Witness statements are notoriously inaccurate when concerning aircraft accidents since most witnesses are not aviators and as a result mis-state altitude, speeds and distances. The report of 100 ft above a house is likely false. A helicopter as large as this one would cause downwash damage from 100 ft and have been disturbingly loud. Besides, we have the radar returns shown on multiple sites that refute those reports.

The news report that mentions the pilot climbing to attempt to get above the clouds is only the reporter’s own assumption. We have no radio comms from the pilot at that time that explains the pilot’s action.

The proper escape procedure IS to climb, but its also the natural involuntary response to becoming disoriented: pull back on the stick.

The first climbing action was likely an abrupt pull back that was countered by a pushover to try to regain a level attitude.

As far as always knowing UP and DOWN:
As an earthbound traveler, that has been your experience. We perceive up and down by the effect of gravity on our bodies, more precisely the perception of our body’s weight on the soles of our feet or the seat of our pants, which we call 1 G.

If you’re flying in an aircraft, which is not bound to earth, the perceptions change:
If you’re straight-and-level in unaccelerated flight, the perception is the same, 1G of force on the seat of our pants.
When you start to do maneuvers such as turning and climbing, you perceive the force of gravity to increase, to multiple Gs depending on the angle of bank or abruptness of climb, but with your eyes closed (or in the clouds) your body cannot perceive the difference between climb and turn. In a dive or reduction of bank angle, the G force is reduced, which is something we’re totally unfamiliar with when earth-bound.
In addition to all of that confusion, our inner ears are perceiving motion, like a gyroscope, through the movement of liquid in our semi-circular canals. This perception may be in direct opposition to what our seat-of-the-pants sense is telling us about the G force.
All of this creates an overwhelming confusion that’s called spatial disorientation, which can lead to vertigo.

FAST and SLOW:
our only visual perception of fast and slow, other than the airspeed indicator is how fast the world outside the cockpit window is moving past, adjusted in our brain by our apparent altitude above the ground. In the clouds there is no apparent motion and the helicopter is loud enough to drown out the effect of wind.

ran a straight path into the hill no coms back to ATC suicide.

Thanks for all the qualified replys and explanations for the board....

I will add when finding yourself in a tight situation as unable to maintain VFR conditions....the "E" word is your get out of jail free card.

There are several types of synthetic vision devices that have come out the last decade.

- One of them is a forward-looking infrared detector, which essentially detects the heat of objects and projects them on a screen in different intensities based on their heat. There is normally enough heat disparity between surface details that this display is seen as a 2D representation of the 3D world.

- The other device is a precise topographical survey mapping that is referenced to GPS position and portrayed graphically on a screen as terrain. This would look like the terrain in a video game.

- A third device is called HTAWS, which is not radar, but depicts the terrain surrounding an aircraft in different colors, depending on whether the terrain is higher or lower than the aircraft’s current altitude. The view is third-person as if you’re looking down on the aircraft.

I have no way of knowing whether the aircraft had any of these devices, but they were not required to have any.

On some newer aircraft models, the manufacturers have teamed with GPS manufacturers, such as Garmin to integrate the aircraft instrumentation into the GPS device, which ends up saving space on the instrument panel and incorporates some of these features.

KSNA - Santa Ana, John Wayne Airport

4sm = 4 statute miles (1 sm = 5280 ft)

1,000 Overcast means that the base of the clouds is at 1,000 ft above the ground. At 900 ft above the ground at the time of the report, the visibility would have been 4 miles. At 1001 ft above the ground, the visibility would have been zero.

If you are unprepared to enter the clouds and by that I mean, not ready to transition to inside reference, flying on instruments, you will lose control of the aircraft. As far as my beliefs on spatial disorientation, I’ve experienced it first hand in the flight simulator. You may be able to successfully control the aircraft for 15 - 20 seconds, but it rapidly deteriorates from there. We train in this maneuver every six months on our instrument check rides to recover from Inadvertent IMC, often while in a turn, and returning the aircraft to a stable condition. It takes a lot of practice and discipline to do it well.

Stevie Ray Vaughn took off in a heavy fog. Instead of doing an elevator ride, they took the stairs and smacked the only ski mountain (hill) within 1000 miles.