Jan 27, 2020
Paul Cline, an assistant professor of aviation at the City University of New York, told
New York Magazine that flying under IFR could mean you could be in a holding pattern for 'an hour'.
'You’re just one of many waiting in line, and it doesn’t matter if you’re Kobe Bryant,' Cline added. 'A ton of rules come into play, and people don’t always want to fly that way [under IFR]. It takes away their ability to do whatever they want to do,' Cline said. 'The trade-off is you get to live.'
The aircraft continued under VFR and around 9.40am it turned west to follow US Route 101, the Ventura Highway. At about 9.44am, the helicopter turned again, toward the southeast, and climbed to more than 2,000 feet, in what appeared to be an attempt to put some space between the helicopter and the high terrain.
[..]
'When you ask for a special VFR [visual flight rules], which they did, only one aircraft is allowed in the airspace,' he said.
'You can hear the controller saying that it had an "ad go around," that means an aircraft already cancelled its landing because of low visibility.'
It then descended and crashed into the hillside at about 1,400 feet, according to data from Flightradar24.
When it struck the ground, the helicopter was flying at about 184mph and descending at a rate of more than 4,000 feet per minute, the data showed.
The chopper went down in Calabasas, about 30 miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles. Bryant's chopper was only 17 miles from the Mamba Sports Academy when the crash occurred.
Kobe Bryant's former pilot claims Sikorsky S-76B is 'reliable' aircraft but 'very complex' | Daily Mail Online
