IF IT HAD THIS SAFETY EQUIPMENT IT MAY HAVE MADE IT
Homendy said the NTSB previously recommended that terrain awareness and warning systems be installed on all passenger-carrying helicopters in the United States, but the Federal Aviation Administration never followed up on that recommendation. The chopper carrying the group with Bryant did not have the safety feature on board.
By Ed Adamczyk
Smoke rises from the wreckage of a passenger helicopter that was carrying
basketball star Kobe Bryant and seven others on Sunday, in Calabasas,
Calif. Photo by John McCoy/UPI | License Photo
Jan. 29 (UPI) -- The helicopter carrying basketball icon Kobe Bryant, his teenage daughter and seven others came within a matter of feet of clearing a fast-approaching hill when it crashed in Southern California last weekend, the National Transportation Safety Board said in an investigation update.
The NTSB said Tuesday night preliminary information indicates the Sikorsky S-76 chopper descended rapidly before impact, and crashed in one piece on the hillside in Calabasas, Calif., about 25 miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles.
The accident, the agency noted, occurred at about 1,085 feet above sea level and missed the top of the hill by as few as 20 to 30 feet. Pieces of the chartered helicopter were scattered across 600 feet of terrain.
"The descent rate for the helicopter was over 2,000 feet a minute, so we know that this was a high energy impact crash," NTSB spokeswoman Jennifer Homendy told reporters."This is a pretty steep descent at high speed. So it wouldn't be a normal landing speed.
"It was a pretty devastating accident scene."
Investigators are closely looking into adverse weather conditions in the area when the helicopter crashed. A layer of fog was so thick that it grounded choppers from the Los Angeles Police Department and Los Angeles Sheriff's Department that morning.
Bryant, 41, his daughter Gianna, six acquaintances and the chopper pilot died in the crash on Sunday. Their bodies were recovered and identified earlier this week.
Homendy said the NTSB previously recommended that terrain awareness and warning systems be installed on all passenger-carrying helicopters in the United States, but the Federal Aviation Administration never followed up on that recommendation. The chopper carrying the group with Bryant did not have the safety feature on board.
Homendy also said pilot Ara Zobyan requested to be tracked by ground controllers but the helicopter was flying too low for it to be seen on radar.
"When ATC asked the pilot what he planned to do, there was no reply," she said.
The NTSB said a first-stage investigative report on the crash will be released within the next 10 days, and a full report in 12 to 18 months
Kobe Bryant’s death throws spotlight on crash-warning system
LIKE THE BOEING 737 MAX SAFETY DEVICES ARE AN 'OPTION'
Jan. 29 (UPI) -- The helicopter carrying basketball icon Kobe Bryant, his teenage daughter and seven others came within a matter of feet of clearing a fast-approaching hill when it crashed in Southern California last weekend, the National Transportation Safety Board said in an investigation update.
The NTSB said Tuesday night preliminary information indicates the Sikorsky S-76 chopper descended rapidly before impact, and crashed in one piece on the hillside in Calabasas, Calif., about 25 miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles.
The accident, the agency noted, occurred at about 1,085 feet above sea level and missed the top of the hill by as few as 20 to 30 feet. Pieces of the chartered helicopter were scattered across 600 feet of terrain.
"The descent rate for the helicopter was over 2,000 feet a minute, so we know that this was a high energy impact crash," NTSB spokeswoman Jennifer Homendy told reporters."This is a pretty steep descent at high speed. So it wouldn't be a normal landing speed.
"It was a pretty devastating accident scene."
Investigators are closely looking into adverse weather conditions in the area when the helicopter crashed. A layer of fog was so thick that it grounded choppers from the Los Angeles Police Department and Los Angeles Sheriff's Department that morning.
Bryant, 41, his daughter Gianna, six acquaintances and the chopper pilot died in the crash on Sunday. Their bodies were recovered and identified earlier this week.
Homendy said the NTSB previously recommended that terrain awareness and warning systems be installed on all passenger-carrying helicopters in the United States, but the Federal Aviation Administration never followed up on that recommendation. The chopper carrying the group with Bryant did not have the safety feature on board.
Homendy also said pilot Ara Zobyan requested to be tracked by ground controllers but the helicopter was flying too low for it to be seen on radar.
"When ATC asked the pilot what he planned to do, there was no reply," she said.
The NTSB said a first-stage investigative report on the crash will be released within the next 10 days, and a full report in 12 to 18 months
Kobe Bryant’s death throws spotlight on crash-warning system
LIKE THE BOEING 737 MAX SAFETY DEVICES ARE AN 'OPTION'
SAFETY SHOULD NEVER BE A COST CUTTING OR BOTTOM LINE OPTION
By BERNARD CONDON and JUSTIN PRITCHARD
1 of 11
Fans pay respect at a memorial for Kobe Bryant near Staples Center Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2020, in Los Angeles. Bryant, the 18-time NBA All-Star who won five championships and became one of the greatest basketball players of his generation during a 20-year career with the Los Angeles Lakers, died in a helicopter crash Sunday. (AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu)
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The crash that killed nine people including Kobe Bryant has led to calls for crash-warning systems to be installed in more helicopters, but regulators and pilots worry that the instrument can trigger too many alarms and prove distracting.
“Another warning system screaming at you isn’t going to help,” said Brian Alexander, a helicopter pilot and aviation lawyer. “You don’t want to inundate the pilot.”
All nine people killed in the crash were officially identified as of Wednesday night, according to the Los Angeles County Department of Medical Examiner-Coroner. The victims had previously been identified publicly by friends and family.
The death of the basketball star Sunday has highlighted the debate over the merits of what’s known as the Terrain Awareness and Warning System, or TAWS, which would have sounded a voice alarm if the aircraft was in danger of hitting the ground or some object, such as a tower or a wire.
It is required in medical helicopters but not in commercial ones like the one used by Bryant.
National Transportation Safety Board officials say it is too early to tell whether a TAWS on Bryant’s Sikorsky helicopter could have prevented the crash. But they think it should have been installed on the aircraft, and they criticized federal regulators for not carrying out the NTSB’s recommendation over a decade ago to mandate such equipment on helicopters with six or more passenger seats.
While some pilots believe TAWS is unnecessary and refer to its warnings as “nuisance alarms,” Peter Goelz, a former managing director of the NTSB, said there is “no reasonable excuse” for the system not to be installed on all choppers.
“From a safety perspective, you want all the safety enhancements that are available,” he said. “The trade-off is worth it.”
The NTSB recommended that the Federal Aviation Administration require the system after a Sikorsky S-76A carrying workers to an offshore drilling ship, crashed in the Gulf of Mexico near Galveston, Texas, killing all 10 people aboard in 2004. Ten years later, the FAA mandated such systems on air ambulances only.
FAA officials had questioned the value of such technology on helicopters, which tend to fly close to buildings and the ground and could trigger too many alarms.
MORE STORIES:
– 'He was special': The NBA tributes continue for Kobe Bryant
– Gianna Bryant, 13, was going to carry on a basketball legacy
– Coach on Bryant helicopter put "heart and soul" in teaching
– A look at some of Kobe Bryant's career highlights
The pilot in Sunday’s crash, Ara Zobayan, had been climbing out of the clouds when the chartered aircraft went into a sudden and terrifying 1,200-foot (366-meter) descent that lasted nearly a minute, investigators said Tuesday. It slammed into a fog-shrouded hillside, scattering debris more than 500 feet (150 meters).
Bill English, investigator in charge of the NTSB’s Major Investigations Division, said it was not clear yet whether “TAWS and this scenario are related to each other.”
Pilot Bernard Raysor said the systems have improved over the years so that they don’t go off all the time, and one of them may have saved him from a crash as he and another pilot were trying to land on a hospital helipad in Little Rock, Arkansas, over a decade ago.
“The TAWS alert went off: ‘Obstacle! Pull up! Obstacle! Pull up!’” he recalled. “We looked at each other like `What is this got to be?’” Then he looked around and saw it: a radio tower whose lights had gone out.
“I can’t say we would have hit it, but it was closer than comfortable,” he said.
Mike Sagely, a former military pilot with 35 years of helicopter flying experience who uses TAWS in his current work in the Los Angeles area, said that while he likes having the system, he agreed that the frequency of audible warnings can make some pilots tune out.
“People, they get complacent with it because they hear it all the time,” Sagely said. “They get so used to hearing it that when they do hear it, and they might even be in a dangerous profile, they may not react to it.”
He described it as helpful to have, but not something to rely on too heavily. “It is another tool, another piece of equipment that should assist you.”
The audible warning can be muted or dialed down to be less frequent, he said. This would leave the display screen, which depicts terrain or objects in coded colors. A mountain or radio tower is shown in red if the helicopter is dangerously close.
As for the NTSB’s recommendations that TAWS be mandatory, Sagely said: “It absolutely has a role. To make it mandatory with the idea that somehow it’s going to stop some of these accidents, I would hesitate to say that, I would call that wishful thinking. Will it stop some accidents, especially in younger pilots? I think that’s probably a reasonable statement.”
___
Condon reported from New York.Kobe Bryant’s helicopter not equipped with vital warning system
January 29, 2020 By Agence France-Presse
The helicopter that crashed into a Los Angeles hillside killing NBA legend Kobe Bryant and eight others, was not equipped with vital software that alerts pilots when aircraft are too close to the ground, officials said.
The terrain awareness and warning system (TAWS), which is designed to send a warning when a collision appears imminent, had not been installed on Bryant’s Sikorsky S-76 helicopter, the National Transport Safety Board’s (NTSB) Jennifer Homendy said.
“Certainly, TAWS could have helped,” NBC News reported Homendy as saying, adding that she could not conclude that its use would have prevented the crash.
The warning system is not mandatory on helicopters under Federal Aviation Administration regulations, despite the NTSB recommending that it be made so on all helicopters with six or more passenger seats, following a 2004 crash.
Medical examiners identified the body of Lakers star Bryant after recovering the remains of all nine of those who died in the crash near LA, officials said Tuesday.
Bryant’s body was officially identified along with three others using fingerprints, two days after their helicopter crashed into a rugged hillside northwest of the city.
Meanwhile federal investigators finished their inspection of the crash site, handing it over to local authorities.
Images showed investigators flying drones over the accident site and manually combing through twisted, charred wreckage, which was scattered over a wide area.
Officials also used drones to replicate the helicopter’s final, fateful flight path, Homendy said.
Earlier Tuesday, the coroner’s office confirmed all nine bodies have been retrieved from the site and “transported to the department’s forensic science center” for examination.
The bodies of pilot Ara Zobayan, baseball coach John Altobelli and Sarah Chester have also been identified.
The remaining five — including Bryant’s 13-year-old daughter Gianna — have not yet been officially identified.
The death of Bryant — a five-time NBA champion for the LA Lakers and double Olympic gold medalist — has shocked the world, with tributes continuing to pour in Tuesday.
– ‘Pretty devastating’ –
Bryant, 41, was traveling with daughter Gianna and seven other passengers and crew when the Sikorsky S-76 slammed into a hillside in thick fog.
The helicopter was headed to Bryant’s Mamba Sports Academy in Thousand Oaks, where his daughter was set to play.
Homendy described the accident as a “high energy impact crash”.
Investigators have now airlifted the helicopter’s wreckage onto trucks, which then transported it to a secure location for further examination.
An iPad, cellphone and maintenance records were found among the wreckage, along with “everything we would expect would be on the aircraft,” said Homendy.
She told journalists that the probable cause for the accident may not be confirmed for 12-18 months, when a final report will be issued.
A preliminary, fact-based report is expected in 10 days.
– ‘Heartbroken and devastated’ –
The other passengers on the flight — who have not yet been officially identified — have been named as Altobelli’s wife Keri, and their daughter Alyssa, who played basketball at the same club as Gianna.
Christina Mauser, an assistant coach of the Mamba girls’ basketball team, was also killed along with Payton Chester, Sarah’s daughter.
Mourning fans Tuesday placed bouquets of flowers at a makeshift memorial outside the gated community in Newport Beach, south of Los Angeles, where the late NBA great lived.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences said a tribute to Bryant would be included in next month’s Oscars ceremony.
The star, who won an Academy Award in 2018 for animated short film “Dear Basketball,” had been honored with a moment’s silence at the Oscars nominees’ luncheon on Monday.
A petition for the NBA logo to be redesigned with Bryant’s likeness had reached two million signatures by Tuesday afternoon.
Basketball superstar LeBron James said he was “heartbroken and devastated” over Bryant’s death in an emotional Instagram post, while also vowing to continue his friend’s championship legacy with the Lakers.
Serbian tennis star Novak Djokovic donned a jersey bearing Bryant’s initials and shirt numbers at the Australian Open tennis tournament in Melbourne.
With the crash site becoming a pilgrimage point for fans, police on horseback and all-terrain vehicles have been brought in to secure the area.
© 2020 AFP
By BERNARD CONDON and JUSTIN PRITCHARD
1 of 11
Fans pay respect at a memorial for Kobe Bryant near Staples Center Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2020, in Los Angeles. Bryant, the 18-time NBA All-Star who won five championships and became one of the greatest basketball players of his generation during a 20-year career with the Los Angeles Lakers, died in a helicopter crash Sunday. (AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu)
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The crash that killed nine people including Kobe Bryant has led to calls for crash-warning systems to be installed in more helicopters, but regulators and pilots worry that the instrument can trigger too many alarms and prove distracting.
“Another warning system screaming at you isn’t going to help,” said Brian Alexander, a helicopter pilot and aviation lawyer. “You don’t want to inundate the pilot.”
All nine people killed in the crash were officially identified as of Wednesday night, according to the Los Angeles County Department of Medical Examiner-Coroner. The victims had previously been identified publicly by friends and family.
The death of the basketball star Sunday has highlighted the debate over the merits of what’s known as the Terrain Awareness and Warning System, or TAWS, which would have sounded a voice alarm if the aircraft was in danger of hitting the ground or some object, such as a tower or a wire.
It is required in medical helicopters but not in commercial ones like the one used by Bryant.
National Transportation Safety Board officials say it is too early to tell whether a TAWS on Bryant’s Sikorsky helicopter could have prevented the crash. But they think it should have been installed on the aircraft, and they criticized federal regulators for not carrying out the NTSB’s recommendation over a decade ago to mandate such equipment on helicopters with six or more passenger seats.
While some pilots believe TAWS is unnecessary and refer to its warnings as “nuisance alarms,” Peter Goelz, a former managing director of the NTSB, said there is “no reasonable excuse” for the system not to be installed on all choppers.
“From a safety perspective, you want all the safety enhancements that are available,” he said. “The trade-off is worth it.”
The NTSB recommended that the Federal Aviation Administration require the system after a Sikorsky S-76A carrying workers to an offshore drilling ship, crashed in the Gulf of Mexico near Galveston, Texas, killing all 10 people aboard in 2004. Ten years later, the FAA mandated such systems on air ambulances only.
FAA officials had questioned the value of such technology on helicopters, which tend to fly close to buildings and the ground and could trigger too many alarms.
MORE STORIES:
– 'He was special': The NBA tributes continue for Kobe Bryant
– Gianna Bryant, 13, was going to carry on a basketball legacy
– Coach on Bryant helicopter put "heart and soul" in teaching
– A look at some of Kobe Bryant's career highlights
The pilot in Sunday’s crash, Ara Zobayan, had been climbing out of the clouds when the chartered aircraft went into a sudden and terrifying 1,200-foot (366-meter) descent that lasted nearly a minute, investigators said Tuesday. It slammed into a fog-shrouded hillside, scattering debris more than 500 feet (150 meters).
Bill English, investigator in charge of the NTSB’s Major Investigations Division, said it was not clear yet whether “TAWS and this scenario are related to each other.”
Pilot Bernard Raysor said the systems have improved over the years so that they don’t go off all the time, and one of them may have saved him from a crash as he and another pilot were trying to land on a hospital helipad in Little Rock, Arkansas, over a decade ago.
“The TAWS alert went off: ‘Obstacle! Pull up! Obstacle! Pull up!’” he recalled. “We looked at each other like `What is this got to be?’” Then he looked around and saw it: a radio tower whose lights had gone out.
“I can’t say we would have hit it, but it was closer than comfortable,” he said.
Mike Sagely, a former military pilot with 35 years of helicopter flying experience who uses TAWS in his current work in the Los Angeles area, said that while he likes having the system, he agreed that the frequency of audible warnings can make some pilots tune out.
“People, they get complacent with it because they hear it all the time,” Sagely said. “They get so used to hearing it that when they do hear it, and they might even be in a dangerous profile, they may not react to it.”
He described it as helpful to have, but not something to rely on too heavily. “It is another tool, another piece of equipment that should assist you.”
The audible warning can be muted or dialed down to be less frequent, he said. This would leave the display screen, which depicts terrain or objects in coded colors. A mountain or radio tower is shown in red if the helicopter is dangerously close.
As for the NTSB’s recommendations that TAWS be mandatory, Sagely said: “It absolutely has a role. To make it mandatory with the idea that somehow it’s going to stop some of these accidents, I would hesitate to say that, I would call that wishful thinking. Will it stop some accidents, especially in younger pilots? I think that’s probably a reasonable statement.”
___
Condon reported from New York.Kobe Bryant’s helicopter not equipped with vital warning system
January 29, 2020 By Agence France-Presse
The helicopter that crashed into a Los Angeles hillside killing NBA legend Kobe Bryant and eight others, was not equipped with vital software that alerts pilots when aircraft are too close to the ground, officials said.
The terrain awareness and warning system (TAWS), which is designed to send a warning when a collision appears imminent, had not been installed on Bryant’s Sikorsky S-76 helicopter, the National Transport Safety Board’s (NTSB) Jennifer Homendy said.
“Certainly, TAWS could have helped,” NBC News reported Homendy as saying, adding that she could not conclude that its use would have prevented the crash.
The warning system is not mandatory on helicopters under Federal Aviation Administration regulations, despite the NTSB recommending that it be made so on all helicopters with six or more passenger seats, following a 2004 crash.
Medical examiners identified the body of Lakers star Bryant after recovering the remains of all nine of those who died in the crash near LA, officials said Tuesday.
Bryant’s body was officially identified along with three others using fingerprints, two days after their helicopter crashed into a rugged hillside northwest of the city.
Meanwhile federal investigators finished their inspection of the crash site, handing it over to local authorities.
Images showed investigators flying drones over the accident site and manually combing through twisted, charred wreckage, which was scattered over a wide area.
Officials also used drones to replicate the helicopter’s final, fateful flight path, Homendy said.
Earlier Tuesday, the coroner’s office confirmed all nine bodies have been retrieved from the site and “transported to the department’s forensic science center” for examination.
The bodies of pilot Ara Zobayan, baseball coach John Altobelli and Sarah Chester have also been identified.
The remaining five — including Bryant’s 13-year-old daughter Gianna — have not yet been officially identified.
The death of Bryant — a five-time NBA champion for the LA Lakers and double Olympic gold medalist — has shocked the world, with tributes continuing to pour in Tuesday.
– ‘Pretty devastating’ –
Bryant, 41, was traveling with daughter Gianna and seven other passengers and crew when the Sikorsky S-76 slammed into a hillside in thick fog.
The helicopter was headed to Bryant’s Mamba Sports Academy in Thousand Oaks, where his daughter was set to play.
Homendy described the accident as a “high energy impact crash”.
Investigators have now airlifted the helicopter’s wreckage onto trucks, which then transported it to a secure location for further examination.
An iPad, cellphone and maintenance records were found among the wreckage, along with “everything we would expect would be on the aircraft,” said Homendy.
She told journalists that the probable cause for the accident may not be confirmed for 12-18 months, when a final report will be issued.
A preliminary, fact-based report is expected in 10 days.
– ‘Heartbroken and devastated’ –
The other passengers on the flight — who have not yet been officially identified — have been named as Altobelli’s wife Keri, and their daughter Alyssa, who played basketball at the same club as Gianna.
Christina Mauser, an assistant coach of the Mamba girls’ basketball team, was also killed along with Payton Chester, Sarah’s daughter.
Mourning fans Tuesday placed bouquets of flowers at a makeshift memorial outside the gated community in Newport Beach, south of Los Angeles, where the late NBA great lived.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences said a tribute to Bryant would be included in next month’s Oscars ceremony.
The star, who won an Academy Award in 2018 for animated short film “Dear Basketball,” had been honored with a moment’s silence at the Oscars nominees’ luncheon on Monday.
A petition for the NBA logo to be redesigned with Bryant’s likeness had reached two million signatures by Tuesday afternoon.
Basketball superstar LeBron James said he was “heartbroken and devastated” over Bryant’s death in an emotional Instagram post, while also vowing to continue his friend’s championship legacy with the Lakers.
Serbian tennis star Novak Djokovic donned a jersey bearing Bryant’s initials and shirt numbers at the Australian Open tennis tournament in Melbourne.
With the crash site becoming a pilgrimage point for fans, police on horseback and all-terrain vehicles have been brought in to secure the area.
© 2020 AFP
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