It’s been a year since the devastating helicopter crash that killed Kobe Bryant, his 13-year-old daughter Gianna and seven other people on board.
On the anniversary of the NBA icon’s death, the cause of the tragedy is still a mystery, but it won’t be long.
The National Transportation Safety Board will hold a virtual hearing next month to determine the likely cause of the crash.
“The ‘probable cause’ isn’t the blame – it’s more likely the most likely scenario that triggered the accident,” Anthony Brickhouse, a former NTSB investigator, told The Post Monday.
The NTSB has already ruled out engine and mechanical failures on the doomed helicopter, releasing more than 1,800 pages of evidence gathered during the investigation in May.
“What the NTSB does is they collect and analyze all that data,” Brickhouse said.
“They look into the human element, they look into the machine – so the actual helicopter – and they look into the environment in which the helicopter actually operated.”
“I haven’t seen anything to indicate that anything mechanically went wrong with the helicopter,” Brickouse continued. “So what you’re doing is your focus on the human element and the environmental element.”
‘You put that puzzle back together. You analyze that information. “
“That’s what we get on February 9,” the day of the hearing.
In the meantime, this is what we know about the crash so far:
The flight:
On Sunday, January 26, 2020, around 9:06 a.m., Bryant, 41, his daughter and six other passengers in a twin-engined Sikorsky S-76B departed from John Wayne Airport in Orange County, California.
The legendary Los Angeles Laker was on his way to a youth basketball tournament at his Mamba Sports Academy in Thousand Oaks, about 137 miles away.
Others on board included assistant basketball coach Christina Mauser, Sarah Chester and her daughter, Payton, and baseball coach John Altobelli, his wife, Keri, and their daughter, Alyssa.
About 15 minutes after takeoff on the cloudy day, pilot Ara Zobayan – who was employed by Island Express Helicopters and had previously flown Bryant – requested permission from Burbank Airport air traffic controllers to enter the airspace.
Due to poor visibility, Zobayan had to apply for the so-called “special VFR” permit to fly through, even under the conditions.
After circling for about 11 minutes due to air traffic, the helicopter was cleared to enter Burbank airspace and continued north towards Van Nuys Airport.
The crash:
The pilot told air traffic controllers at around 9:44 AM that he “climbed” to 4,000 feet to avoid a cloud layer.
In reality, the helicopter climbed slightly before suddenly swinging to the left and descending rapidly – crashing into a hill at approximately 9:45 AM
According to the NTSB, the pilot could have “misunderstood both pitch and roll angles,” become spatially disoriented, and feel that his plane was climbing when it was not.
“When a pilot misperceives altitude and acceleration, it is known as the ‘somatographic illusion’ and can cause spatial disorientation,” the preliminary report said.
Brickhouse explained, “If you have clear skies and visibility, you can see what you need to see.
“But unfortunately, when you’re in clouds, sometimes physiologically, your brain, based on your inner ear, you get a little confused.”
“We’ve seen it in accidents in the past,” he added, “where pilots get into those conditions and they have problems.”
Weather:
The weather on the day of the crash was another fact investigators had been pondering – with evidence gathered in a 394-page meteorological report.
Videos and photos “show fog and low clouds obscuring the hilltops,” the report notes, adding that Zobayan struggled with a “low cloud ceiling.”
Lawsuits filed by Bryant’s widow, Vanessa, and the families of the other victims have argued that Zobayan should not have been allowed to fly under the conditions.
Both the sheriff’s department and the Los Angeles County police had grounded their fleets that day because of the fog and low-hanging clouds.
The helicopter:
The fateful helicopter, meanwhile, had a strong safety record and had even transported Bryant before – including after his last Lakers match in 2016.
“Nothing in the history of this model catches my attention as negative,” Brickhouse said.
However, the helicopter did not have a “black box” or flight recorder and TAWS, a terrain surveillance system that warns pilots when they are flying too close to the ground.
According to the Federal Aviation Administration, it is required in medical helicopters, but not commercial helicopters like Bryant’s.
At the February 9 hearing, the NTSB will also make recommendations “to try to prevent a similar event from occurring in the future,” Brickhouse said.
“I’m curious what the likely cause will be, what the contributing factors will be and what will happen with those recommendations later.”