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Federal officials said on Tuesday that the helicopter crash that killed Kobe Bryant and eight others last year happened because the pilot was likely disoriented while flying in the clouds in violation of federal rules.
The pilot, Ara Zobayan, who also died in the Jan. 26, 2020 crash in Calabasas, Calif., Was operating the Sikorsky S-76B helicopter under rules that prevented it from flying in clouds. However, he did not complete his training and continued in the clouds just before the plane crashed into a misty hill, investigators said.
The crash also killed Bryant’s 13-year-old daughter Gianna, two other teenage girls along with their family members, as well as a basketball coach. The victims were on their way to Orange County for a girls’ basketball game at Bryant’s Mamba Sports Academy.
As he encountered hazy weather conditions, Zobayan informed air traffic controllers that he was climbing 4,000 feet to pass over the cloud layer, when in reality the helicopter was “descending rapidly,” officials said. Federal investigators at a National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) hearing Tuesday.
The NTSB has determined that Zobayan likely experienced “spatial disorientation”, a deceptive feeling that confuses pilots with not knowing “which direction is up or down.”
Investigators also said that given his “very close” friendship with Bryant over the years in which the NBA legend told him to fly his children to basketball games alone, Zobayan may have be under “self-induced pressure” to complete the flight so as not to disappoint Bryant.
While the NTSB said there was no evidence to suggest that the pilot’s employer, Island Express, or Bryant himself, pressured Zobayan to accept the charter flight or to terminate it. , the “self-induced pressure can interfere with the pilot’s decision making. and judgment.”
Investigators indicated that the self-induced pressure by the pilot may have been a factor in “plan continuation bias”, meaning that the pilot continued the flight without committing to another course of action, such as landing. at a nearby airport, despite deteriorating weather conditions. .
NTSB officials said the pilot was aware of the terrain before the flight and that “the weather conditions did not creep” on him.
Faced with harsh weather conditions during the flight, Zobayan could have chosen to land the helicopter at a nearby airport just minutes away, NTSB lead investigator Bill English said at the hearing.
While climbing into the clouds, Zobayan lost external visual references that can lead to a “false sense of direction” due to “inner ear illusions,” investigators said. This can cause pilots to believe that they are flying straight and level when in reality they are flying in a smooth left turn – a phenomenon known as “bank”.
Once Zobayan flew into the clouds, he misperceived he was climbing, when in reality “the helicopter was in a sharp left turn and descending rapidly,” investigators said.
“This maneuver is consistent with the pilot experiencing spatial disorientation and limited visibility conditions,” officials said.
During the descent, the pilot contacted air traffic control numerous times, but did not declare an emergency, the NTSB said.
“The excessive speed entering the cloud, the rapid rate of decline and the left turn were incompatible with his training,” the agency said.
Even while the helicopter was in a deep descent, the pilot did not reference his instruments or had difficulty interpreting or believing them while being disoriented, and he subsequently lost control of the aircraft. aircraft.
The NTSB said that from 2010 to 2019, there were 184 fatal plane crashes related to spatial disorientation, of which 20 were fatal helicopter crashes.
NTSB Chairman Robert Sumwalt said spatial disorientation did not mean the pilot was lost.
He said spatial disorientation means the pilot “may not know which side is up or down, whether he is leaning left or right.”
“It’s not as if this accident happened because the pilot was flying along and didn’t know where the hills were and crashed into the side of a hill,” Sumwalt said.
The accident is now the focus of several state and federal lawsuits, including a wrongful death lawsuit brought by Bryant’s wife, Vanessa Bryant, who alleged negligence of Zobayan and Island Express in the crash.
The complaint alleged that Zobayan “failed to properly monitor and assess the weather conditions prior to take-off”, “failed to terminate the flight despite being aware of the cloudy conditions” and “improperly operated the helicopter in instrument flight conditions “.
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