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Details continue to surface about the final moments before a helicopter carrying Kobe Bryant and 8 others, including his 13-year-old daughter Gianna, crashed into the side of a mountain in Calabasas, California. The weather was previously believed to be an issue but other details show how rapidly the aircraft was descending.
According to a report from the Hollywood Reporter, the aircraft made a hard left before making a rapid and “terrifying descent” of 1,200 feet in a minute.
“This is a pretty steep descent at high speed,” Jennifer Homendy of the National Transportation Safety Board said. “We know that this was a high-energy impact crash.”
An investigation into the crash by the National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration continues and authorities are still searching for a reason to explain why the pilot would have made such a sharp and immediate descent before the fatal crash.
From the report:
https://www.instagram.com/p/B71MS6bH6pb/
Pilot Ara Zobayan had been climbing out of the clouds when the aircraft banked left and began a sudden and terrifying 1,200-foot descent that lasted nearly a minute.
Our deepest condolences continue to go out to the Bryant family, and the families of the other 7 victims — John Altobelli, Keri Altobelli and Alyssa Altobelli, Christina Mauser, Sarah Chester and Payton Chester, and pilot Ara Zobayan — who tragically lost their lives.
