More details about NBA star Kobe Bryant’s fatal helicopter crash are trickling out with police saying the copter flew despite the grounding of some local flights that morning. We have also learned the identities of all nine passengers on the doomed flight.
On Monday morning, the Los Angeles Police Department reported that the weather conditions on Sunday morning did not meet their “standard for flying” during the time Bryant’s helicopter crashed near Calabasas, California, killing all aboard, the New York Post reported.
The LAPD claims that it had grounded its Air Support Division because of reports of heavy fog in the region that morning.
“The weather situation did not meet our minimum standards for flying,” LAPD spokesman Josh Rubenstein said, adding that the fog was “enough that we were not flying.”
The pilot Bryant had employed, Ara Zobayan, was an experienced flier who was “instrument-rated,” meaning he was able to fly by his instrument panel during conditions of reduced visibility, the paper reports.
Nine people lost their lives in the crash, including Bryant, his daughter, and pilot Zobayan.
The others who died in the crash included Harbor Day School girl’s basketball coach Christina Mauser, Orange Coast College basketball coach John Altobelli, his daughter Alyssa Altobelli and wife, Keri Altobelli, and also Sarah Chester and her 13-year-old daughter, Payton. The latter was an 8th-grade student at St. Margaret’s School.
The NTSB is now investigating to try and discover why the crash occurred.
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