Kobe Bryant killed in helicopter crash

That's a shocking thing to hear on the news. Kobe Bryant killed in a helicopter crash in California.

One million moving parts made by the lowest bidder sent into the skies on a prayer.

Reports on who else was on the helicopter with him are presently all over the place. Be careful, as usual, with trusting anything you hear or read.

They have confirmed his wife and kids weren't on it, at least.

Still, nuts.

garion333 wrote:

They have confirmed his wife and kids weren't on it, at least.

Still, nuts.

His 13 year old daughter was with him. They were going to a practice facility. Another player and parent were with them. Two families absolutely devastated in an instant.

Yeah probably waiting to contact the other player's family before they finally released the details.

Very sad. 41, 4 kids, so much life left to live.

I still wish he said he would have played for the Nets if they had drafted him.

Ugh, horrible Rest in peace.

Damn.

Now im intrigued. The helicopter that went down was built in 1991. What in gods name was a commercial helicopter doing still in service carrying high level celeberties?

Yeah you can replace a lot of things on a bird but the air frame itself must have been a ticking time bomb.

Something tells me the company involved will be declaring bankruptcy in very short order

It's unfortunate that a confessed rapist crashed his helicopter and killed a bunch of people.

Drazzil wrote:

Now im intrigued. The helicopter that went down was built in 1991. What in gods name was a commercial helicopter doing still in service carrying high level celeberties?

I had a vague sense that a 29 year old helicopter isn’t too unusual, so I tried looking it up. If I’m reading this graph from the CBO correctly, a significant portion of the Army’s helicopters, around 200 total, are between 35-39 years old.

NathanialG wrote:

It's unfortunate that a confessed rapist crashed his helicopter and killed a bunch of people.

I'm not a fan of Kobe either, but eight other people died, and that alone makes it a tragedy.

An Orange County baseball coach, wife, and child have been confirmed as 3 other passengers.

Drazzil wrote:

Now im intrigued. The helicopter that went down was built in 1991. What in gods name was a commercial helicopter doing still in service carrying high level celeberties?

Yeah you can replace a lot of things on a bird but the air frame itself must have been a ticking time bomb.

Something tells me the company involved will be declaring bankruptcy in very short order

The dense fog in the area may have played a role, though my read on the radar data from this Twitter thread may go either way. The second radar feed indicates sudden surge in speed and altitude just before radar contact was lost, so it's possible the pilot only spotted the hill at the last second and vainly tried to avoid it.

Seeing pics of him and his daughter all over twitter nearly brought the tears. Then all the other people makes it worse. Just thinking about what they must have gone through as it went down horrifies me.

So Trump sent a tweet about Kobe that sounded like trump.
Obama as one would expect tweeted a heart felt message.
Trump then tweets the same message like he crafted it.

I thought it was his own private helicopter. I could be wrong, but maybe he just liked it like an old car. Who knows.

Not a pilot or an aircraft mechanic, but as a long-time aviation nerd just popping in to say that a 29-year-old aircraft still flying is not at all unusual. Most people would be shocked to find out how old some of the commercial airliners they travel on are, let alone much of the equipment the military is using. A properly maintained 30-year-old car is not some kind of deathtrap, and planes and helicopters used by airlines and reputable charter services get FAR more maintenance attention than all but the most babied garage queen classic car.