No Signs of Engine Failure in Kobe Bryant Helicopter Crash: NTSB Report
Kobe Bryant and his 13-year-old daughter Gianna (Obtained by IBex News)
(IBEXNews) – The doomed helicopter carrying Kobe Bryant that crashed in a heap of molten metal last week, killing nine people, showed no signs of “catastrophic” engine failure, federal officials said Friday.
“Examination of the main and tail rotor assemblies found damage consistent with powered rotation at the time of impact,” the National Transportation Safety Board said as it released its first written report in the crash.
The report added that “viewable sections of the engines showed no evidence of an uncontained or catastrophic internal failure.”
The Sikorsky S-76B crashed Jan. 26 on a hillside in Calabasas, Calif.
Investigators previously warned the preliminary report would not include their conclusions as to what caused the crash but might be able to rule out some possibilities.
“Our investigators have already developed a substantial amount of evidence about the circumstances of this tragic crash,” NTSB Chairman Robert L. Sumwalt said in a statement Friday.
“We are confident that we will be able to determine its cause as well as any factors that contributed to it so we can make safety recommendations to prevent accidents like this from occurring again,” he said.
At a press briefing shortly after the tragedy, officials with the National Transportation Safety Board confirmed the chopper was not equipped with a terrain alarm system that might have alerted pilot Ara Zobayan he was close to colliding with the nearby terrain.
Such a system was recommended but not required.
In his last radio transmission before the twin-engine craft crashed and burst into flames, Zobayan reported a plan to ascend to avoid a “cloud layer," officials said.
In its final moments, the chopper climbed to 2,300 feet — rising more than 750 feet in about 30 seconds — and began a “left descending turn," NTSB member Jennifer Homendy said after the crash.
(NTSB)
“The descent rate for the helicopter was over 2,000 feet a minute,” Homendy said.
“So we know this was a high-energy impact crash, and the helicopter was in a descending left bank,” she said.
“This is a pretty steep descent at high speed, so it wouldn’t be a normal landing speed,” she said.
The group in the helicopter left Orange County’s John Wayne Airport at 9:06 a.m. California time that day en route to Bryant’s Mamba Sports Academy in Thousand Oaks for a youth basketball game.
The helicopter hit the hillside and exploded around 9:45 a.m., officials said.
Nearby residents told the Daily News they heard the loud boom and saw the fire that erupted amid foggy conditions.
Bryant, 41, was traveling with his 13-year-old daughter Gianna and two of her basketball team members, Payton Chester, 13, and Alyssa Altobelli, 13.
Also killed were Alyssa’s parents John Altobelli, a 56-year-old college baseball coach, and Keri Altobelli, 46; Mamba basketball coach Christina Mauser, 38, a married mother of three; Payton’s mom Sara Chester, 45; and Zobayan, 50.