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

I think he would have if he could have, but he was never able to climb out of the canyon

These types of accident scenes are sobering. Nothing is intact. There’s the intense smell of Jet fuel, burned debris and ash. I really don’t want to go too much more into detail, but it’s one of the worst experiences.

The name is just a screen name, a play on Max Torque, or Maximum Torque, which refers to full power in a helicopter.

I loved Peter Tork and the Monkees, though. It was my favorite show during those years.

LOL...do your math again. 50 MPH

Why didn't he just follow the 101 to Las Virgenes and visually track his path that way?

Seems like that would have been the next advice from the ATC he was handed off to. No one was going to advise him to "take a shortcut over the mountains" next given the conditions.

Why was the debris blue and white when Kobe’s helicopter was all black?

Probably not a popular belief here but I think he (they) were murdered. The copter was likely tampered with or shot down. I think this was a "satanic" (or whatever religion the Illuminati's practice) sacrifice for the Grammys. And maybe other reasons. His career was over, he may have been worth more dead than alive to some (insurance). Also, he was in a dispute with Big Pharma which has killed countless people just through its normal drug sales.

This was predicted by the Comedy Central cartoon of 11/16/16 (11/7/7) of Kobe dying in a copter crash and also a Nike commercial featuring Kobe & a copter explosion. I don't believe in coincidences like this or that these people are psychic.

I understand the copter went down as Los Virgenes (The Virgins) and there were 3 thirteen year old girls on board, including Kobe's daughter. Classic sacrifice.

People won't even consider this stuff but they should - just because you don't believe it.....doesn't mean that other people, some very powerful, do not. Any celebrity death via accident, drugs, suicide, should be very very carefully investigated.

Last Edited by PresidentElect BlueStateRebel on 01/29/2020 02:09 AM

Get over that. They gifted it to him wrapped in black.
The real helicopter was blue/ white.

Other people leased it, including kardashians, who posted pics on IG
It’s easy to find the real copter.
It was not the black one.
That was literally a wrap

Get over that. They gifted it to him wrapped in black.
The real helicopter was blue/ white.

Other people leased it, including kardashians, who posted pics on IG
It’s easy to find the real copter.
It was not the black one.
That was literally a wrap

LeBron can’t be King w Kobe around.
Just saying

I’m from Oxnard, and Sunday mornings, there is no traffic.
He would have been better off in a car, sadly :(
No need for helicopter Sunday’s in LA.

Not to change the subject regarding the helicopter crash, OP - do you have any opinion regarding the MCAS on the 737 MAX a/c?

Thanks in advance.

Whether or not he had vertigo does not excuse nor explain why he flew in clearly unsafe conditions and knew full well that he was long before. The OP here is seemingly knowledgeable but none of this excuses clear negligence of the pilot and assumes everyone is dumb enough to think that parents on the plane just sat there quietly while circling around in the fog, while jerking up and down...nope, still not buying it. One thing I am confident about is that Kobe no way would he have just sat there like some helpless idiot if all this circling, holding, rising and falling was happening. He knew and SAW there was thick fog and knew there was difficulty happening. Zero chance he just sat there quiet and oblivious. Zero. Because of this, foul play seems far more likely.

On a scale of 1-10, with 10 being guaranteed to crash, how dangerous was this (Kobe’s) flight?

He blew it. Sadly.
The fog was too much.
It’s really sad :(((

Please stop. Na elevator ride to what? The helicopter flew into Apline Valley Resorts. It is has been a major concert venue for decades that doubles as a ski resort.

There are dozens of ski resorts within a hundred miles of Alpine Valley.

Sadly, I tend to agree with your analysis.

Found these articles, the coroner appears to still be working the scene and the remains of 4 have been identified by fingerprints and they are still working on the remaining 5, just horrific to think about



Four minutes later, at 9:44, Zobayan radioed ATC to let them know he had started to climb in order to get above the cloud cover.

Flight data shows he climbed to 2,300 feet and began a left descending turn.

As he climbed to 2,300 feet, Zobayan would have put the helicopter into the very clouds he was trying to avoid, potentially blinding the pilot. Visibility would have gone to nearly zero and he would have lost a visual reference point.

( Right after losing contact )

By then the chopper appears to have already been in a dive.

The helicopter descended rapidly for the final 12 seconds of the flight — hitting a rate of nearly 5,000 feet per minute. (CBS misstated this, it’s 2000)

The last recorded speed was about 184 miles an hour.

When it hit the hillside, the helicopter left an impact crater and scattered debris, sparking a fire and killing everyone on board.



[link to www.cbsnews.com (secure)]


Parts of the helicopter were found scattered at the crash site, which stretched 500 to 600 feet, the NTSB said.

According to Homendy, "preliminary information is that the helicopter was in one piece when it impacted the terrain."

NTSB board member Jennifer Homendy said the helicopter did not have a terrain awareness and warning system, which provides the pilot with information about the terrain.

[link to www.cnn.com (secure)]


.

Last Edited by ~kpm~ on 01/29/2020 06:09 AM

Why don't "choppers" have proximity-warning radars constantly pinging away from all surfaces on the aircraft?

Too expensive?

Was a passenger flying in the other front seat? There have been instances in planes and helicopters where a panicked passenger grabs the controls or inadvertently hits the pedals.

I'd have to look it up, but in a NYC helo crash I think there was an issue with someone's luggage (cameraman?) getting tangled up in the controls?

I believe that’s what they were attempting to do, but lost reference to the freeway and continued south instead of heading west.

If you believe I am covering for the pilot, you haven’t read what I’ve written. My explanations of what occurred along the way and why were meant to shed some light on the situation. The pilot was 100% to blame.

I also stated that I would not have begun the flight under VFR, but rather depart John Wayne IFR enroute to Camarillo where we’d rendezvous with a van or Limousine.

The facts remain that they flew along for 45 minutes under a low ceiling, so no one called timeout in that lengthy period of time. Of those on board, we can only be certain that Kobe and perhaps his daughter had flown before, so the others wouldn’t know any better. Maybe these low altitude scud-running flights were common events and Kobe was used to it. We don’t really know. We do know they continued for 45 minutes under marginal or Special VFR conditions without making any attempts to land. Only in the last minute of flight was the danger obvious to everyone, and it was too late

I would give it an 8, for flying 45 minutes below a low ceiling and restricted viz at speeds often 150 mph. When they departed John Wayne, they had no reason to believe they could make it to Thousand Oaks along their intended course. It’s just not possible to navigate the terrain along the 101 west of Calabasas with the ceiling as low as it was at Van Nuys. 8 because they still had many opportunities to land along the way. The risk became a 9.99 when they still attempted to continue west from Calabasas.

We have radar altimeters, which show the distance to the ground directly below you, but not what’s coming. Some aircraft are equipped with HTAWS, which is a terrain database that depicts terrain elevations in the vicinity of the aircraft. It was reported that this aircraft did not have HTAWS.

There are several other avionics devices, GPS based which provide synthetic vision.

All of these devices provide valuable information, but are only useful AFTER the pilot has stabilized the aircraft attitude in the clouds. This requires Immediate transition onto instruments and establishment of a climb before anything else takes place.

Will the pilot confer with the passengers about the risks and conditions or make the decision on his own?

I believe there was someone in the co-pilot seat or the math doesn’t work. We can’t rule out that possibility. The controls on that side are usually removable when not intended to be used. We’ll have to wait until the NTSB report for those details.

Here's something I don't understand.

Why didn't the pilot take the helicopter above the cloud bank?

Another thing.

At what point do you think the pilot knew he was in an impossible situation.

One more thing.

How many G's was the craft pulling on the steep upswing and how many G's was it pulling in the dive.

You've been great!

were the people on board badly disfigured.

So far, the coroner has only been able to identify 4 of the nine people through finger prints