Jan. 26, 2023, marks the three-year anniversary of the helicopter crash that killed retired Los Angeles Lakers star Kobe Bryant, his 13-year-old daughter, Gianna, and seven others. News of the crash gripped the nation and raised questions about flight safety as the helicopter careened into a hillside near Calabasas, California, while other helicopters remained grounded due to dense fog in the area.
The settlements
Since then, two lawsuits by Vanessa Bryant, Kobe’s widow, and co-plaintiffs have been settled.
In June of 2021, the first settlement, which is confidential, was announced in the wrongful death lawsuit against Island Express Helicopters, the company that owned and operated the helicopter in question. The original complaint, filed a month after the crash in the Los Angeles Superior Court, alleged the defendants “authorized, directed and/or permitted a flight with full knowledge that the subject helicopter was flying into unsafe weather conditions,” and that the victims died “as a direct result” of the negligent conduct of the pilot.
In August of 2022, the second settlement was made public when a federal jury awarded the plaintiffs $31 million in damages after finding the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s and Fire departments liable for infringing on their constitutional rights for taking and sharing graphic photos of their deceased loved ones.
A crash timeline: What happened and who was to blame
As the three-year anniversary approaches, here’s a recap of the events that led up to the tragic crash and the ensuing conclusion of the final incident report by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).
Takeoff
The night before the deadly crash, the pilot, Ara Zobayan of Island Express Helicopters, fielded questions from Kobe Bryant’s coordinating team about the weather forecast. According to the NTSB report, the pilot replied, “Should be OK.”
Shortly after 9 a.m. on Jan. 26, 2020, the helicopter — Sikorsky S-76 — took off from John Wayne-Orange County Airport, heading to Camarillo, California. The eight passengers were all scheduled to attend a youth basketball game near Thousand Oaks. At the same time, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and Los Angeles Police Department decided to ground their own helicopters due to low clouds and fog in the area, according to USA Today.
The NTSB report would later reveal the helicopter lacked a flight recorder (“black box”) and a terrain awareness and warning system (TAWS) which notifies pilots when they get dangerously close to the ground.
Signs of trouble
The helicopter was heading into increasingly mountainous terrain, an area prone to channel fog up from the coast, a witness told investigators. Another witness reported that it was so foggy in the area that the helicopter could only be heard but not seen. The witness questioned why the helicopter would be “flying so low in very bad weather conditions.”
After telling an air traffic controller that he aimed to fly between 400 to 600 feet above ground, the pilot informed the new shift that he was climbing above the clouds, to 4,000 feet.
The crash
The helicopter never got more than 1,600 feet above ground. Then it banked left and descended rapidly, crashing into the foothills of Santa Monica mountains, in a mountain bike park, the NTSB report said. The helicopter was destroyed on impact and caught on fire, killing all onboard.
Jack Cress, a former helicopter pilot in the U.S. Marine Corps and now an aviation safety instructor at the University of Southern California, told USA Today, “That combination of the low-lying stratus layer, and also the relatively high-rising terrain – (it’s) a common and, really, a deadly combination,”
The investigation
The preliminary report established there appeared to be “no evidence of an uncontained or catastrophic internal failure” based on the engines that had been found near the wreckage. Instead, the focus shifted to how the pilot and the adverse weather conditions. After a year-long investigation, the NTSB released a final 86-page report which said the pilot became disoriented after flying into low clouds over the 101 Freeway in Calabasas.
The safety board also maintained the pilot made a “poor decision” to fly at “excessive airspeed” into an area of poor visibility and that he lost control after losing visual contact with the ground. The report ruled out that the charter company had put undue pressure on the pilot to fly in less than ideal conditions.
Rather, the report said, the pilot may have put pressure on himself to complete the flight to satisfy his client, Kobe Bryant. However, it did urge the charter company to improve its safety culture and use better risk management tools.
Contact Penney & Associates
If you or a loved one has been injured in a helicopter accident, you should seek legal help to receive the compensation that you deserve. The lawyers at Penney & Associates have decades of experience and are experts in wrongful death and personal injury law. Schedule a free consultation to learn more.
