Kobe Bryant Mechanical Failure Helicopter Crash

2024 Author: Steven Freeman | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 08:15

The wreckage of the helicopter in which Kobe Bryant, his daughter Gianna and seven other passengers lost their lives show no evidence of mechanical failure. This was announced this Friday by the National Transportation Safety Board or NTSB, for its acronym in English.

"On January 26, 2020 at 09:45 Pacific Time (PST) a Sikorsky SK76B N72EX helicopter collided with the rugged terrain near Calabasas, California," said the official statement issued this Friday by the agency through its site. of press. "Her remains were. located at the foot of the Santa Monica hill, in a mountain biking park …. the impact crater is 24 feet by 15 feet in diameter and two feet deep."

As detailed the instrument panel of the helicopter that was destroyed in the crash and most of its attachments ended up out of place. The flight controls were broken and damaged by the fire that occurred after the brutal impact. "The visible sections of the engines show no evidence of irrepressible or catastrophic internal mechanical failure," says the third page of the report.

Experts now believe that as a branch of a tree that was at the scene of the accident was severed, it seems that both the helicopter's engine and its blades were working and turning at the time of the collision with the ground. "Approximately 95% of the main rotor blades were recovered," it says. "All four blades showed similar damage consistent with being bent mid-span … they had cracks and chipping."

Authorities will continue to investigate the causes of the terrible accident, including the role played by the dense fog of that fateful morning and floating over the skies of the town of Calabasas. Even so, the expert opinions will take much longer and according to what is said, the final report will not be finalized until next year.

As clarified, the report issued this Friday is merely informative and does not offer clarification of what caused the crash. As previously reported, the cause of death has been established as "blunt force trauma", being classified as "accident".

The family of the legendary LA Lakers player has already received the bodies of the player and his daughter, as confirmed by the Los Angeles Coroner's Office on Wednesday. This Thursday it was announced that the city of Los Angeles plans a memorial to honor Kobe at the Staples Center, a venue that will see him succeed for many years.

The date is next February 24, that is, 2-24, an especially symbolic number because at the end of his career the retired NBA star player wore a jersey with the number 24 and his daughter Gigi, a young basketball promise He did the same using the number '2' on his shirt as part of the Lady Mamba youth team. This belonged to the academy established by Bryant in Thousand Oaks, California and which was the destination of the passengers at the time of the fatal accident.