Not certified for instrument flight

[red750]

A report on my Yahoo home page states that the charter company operating the flight which killed Kobe Bryant was not certified for flight in IFR conditions. Although the pilot was licenced for IFR, it is believed he may not have had recent experience due to the certification of the company. The company has suspended all flights.

[onetrack]

The chopper pilot was simply a complete idiot. Fancy flying around blind in California mountains, in a California fog! I cannot understand the stupidity of the mindset of some people.

It's the same dumb mindset as people driving along roads in thick fog at 100kmh with visibility at 10 to 20 metres.

The same dumb mindset that caused the $30M cost of the Lismore truck-train crash in 2006, when the Kenworth driver drove his loaded rig into the side of 3 locos at 90kmh in thick fog.

[Yenn]

You have to remember he was a chopper pilot!

[alf jessup]

You also have to remember he won’t do it again, shame he took 8 others with him

[APenNameAndThatA]

You can be as certified as you want but that won't keep you safe in fog in a helicopter in hills, as someone else implied.

 

I think that celebrities need to understand that people get star struck and turn into idiots. It should not be the case, but it looks like it is that case, that celebrities sometimes have to be the one to say "no" to pilots. We can all be idiots.

[DenisPC9]

I think that celebrities need to understand that people get star struck and turn into idiots.

 

Weren't there cases of Australian politicians (Bronwyn Bishop, from memory) telling RAAF aircrew when and where to land?

[turboplanner]

Weren't there cases of Australian politicians (Bronwyn Bishop, from memory) telling RAAF aircrew when and where to land?

It was a domestic flight and she landed in the news instead.

[BirdDog]

The chopper pilot was simply a complete idiot. Fancy flying around blind in California mountains, in a California fog! I cannot understand the stupidity of the mindset of some people.

It's the same dumb mindset as people driving along roads in thick fog at 100kmh with visibility at 10 to 20 metres.

The same dumb mindset that caused the $30M cost of the Lismore truck-train crash in 2006, when the Kenworth driver drove his loaded rig into the side of 3 locos at 90kmh in thick fog.

 

The same dumb mindset that killed Stevie Ray Vaughan in 1990!! No new ways to die in aviation!

[Guest Machtuk]

I have more years than I care to remember in actual IMC and it's bloody hard work manipulating the multiple tasks in the plane without A/P. With today's modern avionics and A/P's even in LSA it's very easy to get in to IMC conditions being led there by the fancy stuff calling you..... keep going come on in, sucker!

[BirdDog]

I don't think some people realise how quickly it happens. I had a recent experience where I took a family member up for a flight. It was a hazy day with smoke in the air from the fires, but on the ground it looked ok. I was cautious on climb out and decided to turn crosswind and climb up over the airfield - just in case. While I was making sure the aircraft was behaving etc, and my Pax was Ok, we started to climb above 3000, and the ground started to fade very quickly. It was at that point I immediately descended and put her away. I reckon another 30 seconds or so, and the ground was gone!

 

From the ground though, it looked OK. I live on a hill not far from the AD, and I could see right across the valley. Obviously very different conditions at 3000ft up!

[turboplanner]

I don't think some people realise how quickly it happens. I had a recent experience where I took a family member up for a flight. It was a hazy day with smoke in the air from the fires, but on the ground it looked ok. I was cautious on climb out and decided to turn crosswind and climb up over the airfield - just in case. While I was making sure the aircraft was behaving etc, and my Pax was Ok, we started to climb above 3000, and the ground started to fade very quickly. It was at that point I immediately descended and put her away. I reckon another 30 seconds or so, and the ground was gone!

 

From the ground though, it looked OK. I live on a hill not far from the AD, and I could see right across the valley. Obviously very different conditions at 3000ft up!

Smoke can have similar properties to an inversion layer; from one angle it's transparent, from another opaque.

[facthunter]

It's often you can see the ground below you but on the slant angle forwards you can see nothing. That's understandable as you are looking through a longer column of mist/fog/ smoke.. Smoke can turn into cloud as you fly along without you noticing, if you don't monitor it carefully. Combine that with the sun getting lower in the sky and you may have a difficulty if you don't have an instrument backup available. Nev

[Jabiru7252]

Somewhere I read that the dumbest folks are often the ones who think they're the smartest. There a volumes of research into this stuff.

[onetrack]

Possibly the scariest part about this Sikorsky chopper pilot, is that he had accumulated 8000 hrs, and had been instructing others. Looks to me, like another graduate from the Arthur "Bud" Holland School of Flight Training.

One just has to keep in mind, that Bud Holland and this chopper pilot, along with many other risk-taking crash pilots, are basically murderers.

 

The innocent others in their aircraft placed their faith in these peoples flying skills, and their lives in their hands, and these pilots cared not a whit about their pax safety, nor their own, with their reckless, risk-taking style of flying.

When others place their lives totally in your hands, it behoves you to take no risks whatsoever - no matter what the pressure.

[kgwilson]

Returning from Parkes on 23 September I got about abeam of Tamworth and could see a grey wall to the north east. I was under the 2nd Class C step at 6,400 feet. Once past the zone I climbed to 9,500 & the grey seemed to stretch up to a massive altitude. This was the haze from one of the early fires called Bees Nest near Ebor. I continued on track to see whether the visibility would change noting a diversion to the North may be on the cards. I wanted to be as high as possible over the Tiger country. I found visibility good straight ahead and also straight down but in between it was grey. Once over the top of the range, (tops out at 5,200 feet) I began descending from just under 10,000 feet towards Nymboida and the in between visibility began to increase and I was now in home territory. I planned a diversion but determined it was not necessary in the end. 3 days earlier when I flew down to Parkes a Mooney had a CFIT killing the pilot & passenger in this area in poor weather with cloud below the tops. They did not have a flight plan. Coffs ATC had cleared them seaward side at 1000 feet but they decided to fly inland anyway with the fatal result. Failing to plan is planning to fail.

[Yenn]

During the worst part of the bushfires we had smoke in Central Qld. Not enough to make you think of not flying, but when you got up a bit the horizon became hazy and the ground was just a grey blur. Not nice conditions and it could have sucked you in, leading to inadvertent IFR.

[hihosland]

All attention is being placed on the pilot who had the legal responsibility for the conduct of the flight.

 

No one seems to consider the influence of the other force in the helicopter.

 

I cannot believe that anyone can spend many hours as a passenger/hirer or owner of a chopper in that location and not be aware of the hazards of losing VMC.

 

At any time that VIP, celebrity, employer, very imposing figure and well known bully could have called the flight off.

 

Certainly the pilot had the legal responsibility, a responsibility that may have been exercised differently had the other force on the flight exercised some executive/moral responsibility.

 

We will never know

but I am certain that there is more to this than, I quote, "The chopper pilot was simply a complete idiot. "

[onetrack]

Hihosland, the same situation is seen again and again - demanding VIP's on board, the pilot/s under pressure to meet unrealistic flight schedules, trying to please those VIP's, often in fear of their job. The "VIP Syndrome".

The worst we've seen of this situation was the Polish Air Force Tupolev TU-154 disaster at Smolensk in 2010.

Under pressure by VIP's on board, to land in thick fog, the pilot misjudged his glide path, hit a tree with the port wing, inverted the aircraft, and killed all 96 on board. Most of Polands senior pollies and military leaders.

 

We will quite likely not find out the pressure placed on this particular chopper pilot, potentially by Kobe Bryant. Maybe the insistence was verbalised, maybe the pilot just felt a lot of pressure, with no definitive urging.

It appears, though, that the pilot made serious piloting errors, unbecoming of someone with his reported experience and training. He was trained in IFR, why didn't he plan and fly an IFR flight?

 

Instead, he flew blind, utilising VFR, and tried to "bust through" the fog level by feel. He failed, and apparently failed in a classic manner.

Incredibly, it appears he was within 12 secs of busting through the fog in his climb to try and find clear air - but before he made it, he became disoriented, turned left and started descending rapidly.

He hit rising terrain at 290kmh travelling in forward flight, with a descent rate of 4000' a minute. As the expert says, when you exit cloud at that descent rate and speed, you've lost control of the aircraft.

 

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-02-08/kobe-bryant-ntsb-helicopter-crash-report-latest/11946228?section=sport

[onetrack]

I'm amazed to find, after a little more reading, that none of the helicopter charter companies in Southern California, and not even the California Police helicopters, are certified for IFR flight.

It appears the fitout costs, the training requirements, and the insurance costs, are so high, when the operators go for IFR certification, that none of them are prepared to do it.

 

It seems incredible that they all own these high-tech, mega-dollar choppers, and yet they can't afford that last step to protect their flying investments, and their clients.

It remains to be seen though, just what the lawsuit payouts will run into when they are finally arrived at, for pax that were millionaires and billionaires, and whose relatives will put in claims for multiple hundreds of millions.

Those payout figures will make IFR certification look cheap.

[kaz3g]

“It remains to be seen though, just what the lawsuit payouts will run into when they are finally arrived at, for pax that were millionaires and billionaires, and whose relatives will put in claims for multiple hundreds of millions.

Those payout figures will make IFR certification look cheap.”

 

Reminds me of a fairly recent at Hotham, at Essendon, at....

[turboplanner]

Reminds me of a fairly recent at Hotham, at Essendon, at....

 

......Buddy Holly, Big Bopper, Richie Valens, Patsy Clyne, Hawkshaw Hawkins, Cowboy Copas, Jim Reeves, Dean Manuel..........

anywhere there's someone in a hurry and a weak pilot in command.

You start to learn about it as soon as you get your pax endorsement.

[Yenn]

What does that long list of well known names really mean. We do not know if the celebrity pressured the pilot or not. With the number of hours he had and the fact that he was IFR capable, even if not current, he should have been capable of working out the safety of what he was doing.

The pilot is ultimately the arbiter of whether it is safe to go or not, but over the years we have seen bad decisions made by helicopter pilots, resulting in their and others deaths.

They seem to have a much higher opinion of their capabilities than others do. A friend of mine died in a chopper crash, he had knocked off for the day and had a drink. Someone let off a safety flare, which was seen from the island resort, where he was. He discussed the risks of flying at night and after his drink and made the decision to fly and investigate the flare. He lost it, crashed into the sea and died. Good pilot, great bloke, but he made the wrong decision. Even worse it turned out that the flare was a hoax.

[dsam]

I think I read that:

- the pilot was IFR trained, but not current.

- the aircraft was not IFR equipped

- the flight was initially conducted as VFR, with requested special VFR

- the crash site was in IMC at the time and place of impact.

As pilot in command, you would have authority to tell PotUS you can’t and won’t fly in IMC, so he’d better call for a taxi (granted, you‘d need a good backbone).

If my reading of the main points is accurate, I’m inclined to criticise the pilot’s failure to rightfully stay on the ground, as the chief cause of the deaths (Ie. poor airmanship by attempting the flight).

I suppose the NTSB official report will show whether my conjecture is accurate...

[Guest Machtuk]

I think I read that:

- the pilot was IFR trained, but not current.

- the aircraft was not IFR equipped

- the flight was initially conducted as VFR, with requested special VFR

- the crash site was in IMC at the time and place of impact.

As pilot in command, you would have authority to tell PotUS you can’t and won’t fly in IMC, so he’d better call for a taxi (granted, you‘d need a good backbone).

If my reading of the main points is accurate, I’m inclined to criticise the pilot’s failure to rightfully stay on the ground, as the chief cause of the deaths (Ie. poor airmanship by attempting the flight).

I suppose the NTSB official report will show whether my conjecture is accurate...

 

I agree.

At the end of the day the PIC is ultimately responsible for the safety of all onboard. He failed in that responsibility, end of story! Will it stop others? Nope, intentional abuse of priveledge happens all the time in aviation. RIP to the innocent on board.

[Litespeed]

RIP to all onboard bar.................................The Idiot pilot who through his actions took many lives.

 

And Kobe Bryant, a reknown thug, bully and rapist who got away with it- he should have still been in Jail doing time- but VIP meant no justice.

 

He deserves absolutely no respect or sadness in his death.

 

He lived as a scum bag criminal and deserved to die like one, alas he got off very lightly.