On January 26, 2020, a Sikorsky S-76B helicopter crashed in the city of Calabasas, California, around 30 mi (48 km) northwest of Downtown Los Angeles, while en route from John Wayne Airport to Camarillo Airport. All nine people on board were killed: retired professional basketball player Kobe Bryant and his 13-year-old daughter Gianna; baseball coach John Altobelli, his wife Keri, and his daughter Alyssa; Sarah Chester and their daughter Payton; basketball coach Christina Mauser; and the pilot, Ara Zobayan.
The accident was investigated by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) which concluded that it was caused by continued VFR into IMC: the helicopter entered low cloud cover, which caused the pilot to lose his sense of orientation, and thus losing control.
Weather conditions
A number of video recordings of the crash area were available, and although none showed the crash itself, the sound of the helicopter and the crash was recorded. In particular, surveillance cameras installed at the Agoura Pony Baseball Fields provided overlapping coverage of the final parts of the flight path. The FAA conducted a visibility study which used frequency analysis to determine when the aircraft made the closest approach to each camera, ground-speed, engine RPM, and likely inflight visibility by comparing video recorded during the accident period to clear-sky imagery. 1-2 The report concluded that, at the moment of the accident, the estimated visibility ranges were between 1-1.5 miles (1.6-2.4 km).
The Los Angeles Police Air Support Division had grounded its police helicopters on the morning of January 26 due to poor visibility and low ceiling; Air Support Division rules require at least 2 miles (3.2 km) of visibility and an 800-foot (240 m) cloud ceiling.[14] At the time that N72EX took off from SNA, visibility was 5 miles (8.0 km) with a ceiling of 1,300 feet (400 m). It was operated by Island Express Helicopters Inc. as a 14 CFR 135 (Part 135) on-demand passenger flight under visual flight rules (VFR). Flying through clouds is possible if a pilot elects to operate under instrument flight rules (IFR), but the company's Part 135 operating certificate, issued in 1998, limited operations to on-demand VFR-only flights. Even if the company's operating certificate and its own internal policies had allowed for flying under IFR, that option could still have led to lengthy delays and detours (thereby using up any anticipated time savings) because of severe congestion in Los Angeles controlled airspace. Bryant's celebrity status would not have given the helicopter priority in that airspace.
According to an automated weather station, the ceiling (distance from ground to bottom of the cloud layer) at the Van Nuys Airport was 1,100 feet (340 m) above ground level. Closer to the site of the crash, the cloud top extended up to 2,400 feet (730 m) above mean sea level.
11 окт 2024
