Mom's sage advice of "if you don't have anything nice to say don't say anything at all" comes to mind. There's a lot of people hurting right now from this tragedy (family members & friends specifically). Be respectful!
Typically, I'm not one to care too much about celebrity deaths, but maybe because I'm just not someone who follows actors and others. This hits a little different. This one is tragic for all of those families, especially due to their being kids on board and kids surviving the ones lost. Pretty crazy, hope the families are OK.
I understand where you're coming from completely. This absolutely sucks. In the poster's defense it's not like secret societies don't exist and people in to gematria were saying during Lebron's run up to passing Kobe that the numbers were leading to someone big dying. All the coincidences around Kobe's death aren't really coincidences. You even had a cartoon years ago predict this with Kobe inside of a crashed helicopter. It is gonna hurt but we can't let ourselves get down. There is so much at play with people who are powerful and really pull the strings.
I feel sad for all lives lost, but especially for the one that we BB fans knew just a little bit better. With some much impact felt in America and around the world, one can truly say Kobe was a global icon. My oldest son, a true Rockets fan, just texted me to tell me he is much sadder about this tragic event that he thought he would be. I'm sure this is a sentiment that is shared by most members here. I cannot even imagine what the relatives of the deceased are going through, the morning after. If Time heals all wounds, it couldn't go fast enough.
Please don’t try to defend or rationalize that nonsense. I’m gonna have to start assuming that all these posters with a generic username starting with the word “rocket” are just dumb... RocketsTruth, rocketchamp, rocket1995...all dumbasses...that’s 3 strikes
For your first point, google 'graveyard spiral.' It's a somatic illusion where your body feels the normal 1 gravity of force towards the ground. The problem is that it's because your airplane is flying a tight, descending spiral, increasing your vertical speed, and by the time you realize it, you're out of altitude to do anything about the situation. There are plenty of situations where the airplane can have around one gee of vertical acceleration, and be moving all over the sky. The pilot Bob Hoover had a video of him pouring a glass of ice tea from a pitcher, while his airplane was doing a barrel roll over thousands of feet of altitude. The test pilot Tex Johnson infamously barrel rolled IIRC, the Boeing 707 prototype on a demonstration flight over Seattle. Perfectly safe, if you have the airspeed and altitude to do it. Second point, with the ADS-B data (a system where the aircraft constantly tells air traffic control where it is, how fast it's going, and how high it is), we can see that Bryant's helicopter was trying to follow Highway 101 just before impact. Right before impact, the aircraft made a descending left turn, picked up speed, and impacted the hillside at around 160 knots. Or about 175 miles per hour. It was likely very quick for the passengers. My guess about why the pilot would make such a turn is that weather was getting foggier up ahead, and he wished to turn back the way he was headed, do a 180. Unfortunately, turns require room, especially at the 120 knots he was doing when he started the turn. He was disoriented, lost, and didn't realize there was a hillside 'right next to him', that he would run into midway through the turn. Not the traditional graveyard spiral, but still a case of taking a perfectly good helicopter and stuffing it and 8 innocent people into a hillside at 175 miles per hour.
I don't see any justification at all for the pilot's actions here. Personally, what the pilot did was so boneheaded, when I first read about it, I thought it had to be Kobe at the stick, because a professional pilot couldn't be that fu*king stupid. Wrong. My guess, is that Bryant was in the pilot's ear about how late they were running, and the pilot pushed a flight into marginal weather conditions the pilot was unprepared for. Probably sweating that if the pilot said, "No, I'm not flying you guys into this. It's not safe." the pilot would be fired, and replaced with another more considerate of the client's wishes. It still doesn't excuse the pilot in command's negligent decisions he made throughout that flight. I've mentioned it before, but it's colloquially known as 'get-there-itis' in aviation, and it kills people all of the time.
Maybe, but it is still a ton of speculation. I still think the weather and some maneuvers played a role here, who flies a helicopter with 9 people when there is thick fog? Unbelievable. I would be happy stuck and jammed up in normal traffic.
I don't believe there's video of the impact. There is video of a UAE helicopter crash that's floating around and people are claiming is Bryant's helicopter, but they're wrong. And ghoulishly trying to harvest clicks off of it. Oh well, people are scum, what can you do? I wrote above that I don't think this was a classic 'fly into IFR conditions, get disoriented, and lose control of the airplane' crash. I think the pilot tried to 180 away from deteriorating weather and didn't have room for the turn because he didn't know where he was in relation to high terrain. Similar to the airplane crash in Manhattan that Cory Liddle had a few years ago. He tried a turn in his Cirrus when he was between buildings, didn't have enough room, and stuffed his airplane into a tall apartment building. Same sort of thing, just much worse weather in Bryant's case.
Dbl post, my bad. I'll just reiterate that the flight would be safe, if the pilot was instrument flight qualified and up to date, the aircraft was equipped with sufficient flight navigational instruments and radios, and the pilot had properly prepared for the weather conditions, including filing an instrument flight rules 'flight plan' with the FAA. The Sheriff's Department helicopters were grounded, true, but they need to see the ground for a lot of what they do. If they can't see, then why fly?
Will he be remembered most for those things though? He shouldn't be. I remember him as a selfish narcissist who manipulated the NBA draft and who ran a hall of fame player out of town so he could be top dog. A player who verbally abused other players on national TV. A husband who bought off his wife after "cheating" on her, then bought off the other woman who contended that "cheating" was sexual assault. A dad who brags about his middle school daughter's team beating another 115-27. A man with no humility, no decency, no empathy, no morality. A cretin and a rapist. What is remarkable about all this is the likelihood that the tragedy occurred precisely because of Kobe's incredible entitlement and narcissism. Imagine teaching your children to "take the helicopter to the middle school game" even in bad weather and even when it endangers the lives of others. Had it not been for Kobe, all those other lives that no one bothers talking about would likely not have been lost.
Word that I have received is that the Sheriffs Department helicopters are not IFR equipped (makes sense because most of their purpose requires VMC). edited
Have 0 knowledge about the subject, so thanks for all posters giving a more technical explanation. Sucks that by the looks of it, this was totally avoidable, as with every air accident, just a succession of mistakes and bad luck.
Wow. This thread is a **** show and my opinion has changed on two posters because of it. I understand the need to be contrarian and "different" for the sake of standing out in our society today but to willingly inject past accusations even if true to lesson the impact a man had on the world. That's cold. So cold that I wouldn't be surprised if there were some serious sins those posters are running from themselves. God bless all you Clutchfans out there even if you have past issues I love you and hope you are better people and give back to this world.
