NBA legend Kobe Bryant’s helicopter traveling in foggy conditions on Sunday missed clearing the top of the mountain by about 20 feet, federal investigators said on Tuesday as they continued to sift through the wreckage and document the fatal crash site with drones.
Investigators also verified that the chopper did not have a terrain awareness warning system — a safety device that the National Transportation Safety Board urged the Federal Aviation Administration to implement 16 years ago after 10 people died in a Texas crash.
The FAA “failed to act on” this safety recommendation that warns pilots of nearby terrain, NTSB’s Jennifer Homendy said at a press conference in Calabasas, Calif., on Tuesday.
Bryant, his 13-year-old daughter Gianna and seven others were killed on Sunday when the NBA great’s Sikorsky S-76B crashed near Los Angeles. Law enforcement helicopters had been grounded because of foggy conditions.
The helicopter descended more than 2,000 feet per minute, Homendy said. The time from descent to impact was about one minute.
“We know this was a high-energy-impact crash,” she said. “This is a pretty steep descent at high speed, so it wouldn’t be a normal landing speed.”
On Monday, NTSB asked for photos of the weather near the crash site at the time of impact. Some of the photos and videos that the NTSB received were not even from the United States.
“While I do appreciate a lot of what we received, and a majority of what we received is fantastic, but in other areas it does waste our investigators’ time,” Homendy said.
The last of the nine bodies was recovered Tuesday. Investigators also recovered an iPad from the scene.
Investigators have said pilot Ara Zobayan asked for and received permission from air traffic controllers to proceed in the fog. In his last radio transmission before the helicopter went down, he reported that he was climbing to avoid a cloud layer.
Zobayan had 8,200 hours of flight time as of July. He had 1,250 hours of flight time on this type of helicopter.
“That’s a good amount of experience,” Homendy said.
NTSB will issue a preliminary report in 10 days, and then a final report in 12 to 18 months with safety recommendations and a probable cause.
“The goal is to prevent a similar accident from happening again,” Homendy said.
Herald wire services contributed to this report.
"close" - Google News
January 29, 2020 at 08:33AM
https://ift.tt/38QGcXR
Kobe Bryant’s helicopter came close to missing mountain: NTSB - Boston Herald
"close" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2QTYm3D
Shoes Man Tutorial
Pos News Update
Meme Update
Korean Entertainment News
Japan News Update
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "Kobe Bryant’s helicopter came close to missing mountain: NTSB - Boston Herald"
Post a Comment