MALIBU, CA — There was no frantic mayday call — no smoking engine seen streaking through the sky. What is known about the final moments of Kobe Bryant’s life remains shrouded in mystery like the fog that swallowed the helicopter he was in. Investigators do know there was no sign of panic in the pilot’s voice as he talked with the Hollywood Burbank Airport air traffic control and received special permission to fly in the fog — even though Los Angeles authorities had grounded others helicopters because of it. The plan was to fly above it all.
Bryant, his daughter Gianna, and seven others were trying to get to a basketball tournament at Bryant’s Mamba Sports Academy in Thousand Oaks as the pilot made plans to get above the thick clouds. When they flew into the fog above the San Fernando Valley, the pilot asked flight controllers to keep track of them, perhaps, a sign of doubt about the foggy flight. But as the helicopter approached Calabasas at 150 miles per hour, air traffic controllers radioed the pilot to tell him he was too low for them to see on the radar, the Los Angeles Times reported.
They climbed 765 feet in 36 seconds to clear nearby hills, before suddenly veering off course and rapidly descending, smashing into a hillside, the Times reported. All nine people on board were killed.
Federal officials this week began the investigation into the crash that killed the basketball legend, his 13-year-old daughter and seven others as the world continued to mourn “The Black Mamba.”
“We’re here to conduct a safety investigation, and our mission is not to just determine what happened, but why it happened and how it happened, to prevent a similar accident from ever happening again,” NTSB board member Jennifer Homendy told reporters at a late-afternoon briefing Monday.
An NTSB “go team” conducted an organizational meeting Monday morning, establishing investigative groups among the various agencies involved in the investigation: the NTSB, Federal Aviation Administration, helicopter manufacturer Sikorsky, aircraft owner Island Express Holding Corp., the National Air Traffic Controllers Association and aircraft engine manufacturer Pratt & Whitney Canada.
The helicopter crashed at about 9:45 a.m. Sunday in the area of Las Virgenes Road and Willow Glen Street. The Sikorsky S-76B helicopter went into a hillside, and the NTSB said it left a debris field stretching between 500 and 600 feet.
The helicopter was bound for Camarillo, where Bryant was set to coach his daughter Gianna in a basketball tournament game.
In addition to 41-year-old Bryant and his daughter, killed in the crash were: Ara Zobayan, the instrument-rated pilot who was flying the helicopter; John Altobelli, 56, a veteran baseball coach at Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa, along with his wife, Keri, and their 13-year-old daughter Alyssa, a teammate of Gianna; Sarah Chester, 45, and her 13-year-old daughter Payton, who also played with Gianna and Alyssa; and Christina Mauser, 38, one of Bryant’s assistant coaches on the Mamba Academy team.
All nine bodies were recovered, Los Angeles County coroner’s officials said Tuesday. The remains were all taken to the coroner’s office for examination and formal identification. All the victims of the crash have been identified by relatives and friends, but the coroner’s office has only officially identified four of the victims: John Altobelli, Kobe Bryant, Sarah Chester and Ara Zobayan.
The Special Operations Response Team was able to recover three of the bodies Sunday, but suspended its search due to darkness Sunday night before restarting efforts the next morning. The three victims recovered Sunday were taken to the coroner’s office for examination and formal identification.
The crash site was cordoned off by the sheriff’s department, accessible only to area residents with identification, and the airspace above it has been declared a no-fly zone. Sheriff Alex Villanueva said the department has deputies on horseback patrolling the rugged area, noting that people are trying to sneak into the area, some crawling through the brush in hopes of avoiding detection.
Homendy said the weather conditions will be part of the crash investigation, and she asked that anyone with photographs of the weather conditions in the Calabasas area around the time of the crash to send copies to [email protected].
“We’re not just focusing on weather here, though,” she said. “We take a broad look at everything around an investigation, around an accident. We look at man, machine and the environment, and weather is just a small portion of that.”
Friends noted that Zobayan had more than 1,000 hours piloting the helicopter and was an instrument-rated pilot, so he was qualified to fly in foggy and cloudy conditions.
Homendy said NTSB investigators will likely be on the scene for about five days to collect “perishable evidence,” but she stressed that a cause of the crash won’t be determined at the site. Investigators will only be collecting wreckage and whatever information they can. She noted that drones were used Monday to map the crash scene, and FBI investigators were assisting with the collection of evidence, although it is not a criminal investigation.
She noted that the helicopter was not outfitted with a “black box” flight recorder, but it was not required to have one.
SoCal Mourns Coaches, Parents And Kids
The Lakers had been scheduled Tuesday night to play the Clippers at Staples Center, but the game was postponed to allow the team to continue grieving Bryant’s death.
While tributes continued to pour in for Bryant and his daughter, the other victims of the crash were also being honored.
John Altobelli was scheduled on Tuesday to begin his 28th year coaching the Orange Coast College baseball team. The team will go forward with its season-opening game. Players practiced Monday, and installed a banner in honor of Altobelli on the left-field wall of the college stadium.
Mauser was a mother of three children, ages 11, 9 and 3. She and her husband previously coached the girls’ basketball team at Harbor Day School in Corona del Mar, where Gianna was one of their players. Husband Matt Mauser confirmed her death in a Facebook post, then appeared on NBC’s “Today” show Monday.
“I got three small kids and am trying to figure out how to navigate life with three kids and no mom,” he said.
Matt Mauser said Bryant chose his wife as an assistant coach “to teach the kids defense. They called her the mother of defense.”
Payton Chester also played on Bryant’s Mamba Academy team and was being accompanied to the game by her mother, Sarah. Todd Schmidt, the former principal of Harbor View Elementary School in Corona del Mar, which Payton attended through fifth grade, paid tribute to the girl and her mother on Facebook.
“While the world mourns the loss of a dynamic athlete and humanitarian, I mourn the loss of two people just as important,” Schmidt said. “Their impact was just as meaningful, their loss will be just as keenly felt, and our hearts are just as broken.”
A family friend said Payton was attending St. Margaret’s Episcopal School in San Juan Capistrano.
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Patch staffer Paige Austin and City News Service contributed to this post