Just-released audio from the Los Angeles County Fire dispatchers is shedding more light on the conditions in Calabasas on the morning of January 26, whenKobe Bryant, his13-year-old daughter Gianna, andseven otherswere killed in ahelicopter crash.
When asked what was on fire, the hiker said, “The hill. But whatever crashed into the hill is also on fire… I think it was an airplane. A small plane.”
“A helicopter crashed into a mountain, we heard it, and now I’m looking at the flames,” said another caller, who said he could see the crash site from a quarter-mile away at an Erewhon grocery store. “We’re looking at the flames right now on the hills.”
Mark J Terrill/AP/Shutterstock
“I just heard a helicopter go over me, approximately from Lost Hills Road on a south to easterly sweep. It went over my head, it’s thick in clouds, and then I heard a pop, and it immediately stopped… I can’t see it,” another caller who said he has lived in the area since 1963 said. “That part of the mountain is… in clouds.”
Another caller called twice to clarify the location of the helicopter. By the time of his second call, he said that the flames were still burning but were starting to die down.
In addition to Kobe and Gianna,John Altobelli,Keri Altobelli,Alyssa Altobelli,Sarah Chester, Payton Chester,Christina Mauserand pilotAra Zobayanperished in the crash.
The group had been on their way to a youth basketball game at Bryant’s Mamba Academy in Thousand Oaks.
While the fire department did not release time stamps along with the calls, it took place around 10 a.m.
Helicopter crash.Richard Vogel/AP/Shutterstock
Jennifer Homendy with the National Transportation Safety Board announced that the aircraft — which had been flying in extremely foggy conditions — plunged over “2,000 feet per minute” before crashing during apress conferencelast Tuesday.
“The manner of death was certified as an accident,” the press release said.
PEOPLEspoke with one of the 911 callerson the day of the tragic crash.
“It was right at 9:41 a.m.,” Scott Daehlin told PEOPLE, adding that the cloud deck “was much lower” than normal.
“Probably the cloud base was about 300 feet. I think another local resident who lived here 17 years in these condos said he’d never seen the fog and low clouds this thick,” Daehlin, 61, said.
“All of a sudden I hear impact, crash, breaking fiberglass, plexiglass,” Daehlin described, adding that the helicopter rotors “immediately stopped” spinning.
“It was over in a quarter second. Just went quiet,” he said.
Gianna Bryant, Kobe Bryant.Allen Berezovsky/Getty
“About five minutes later I heard there was a report of a plane that went down, then I started hearing sirens. Moments later reports that it was a helicopter started coming out. It was just so foggy out. I’ve never seen anything like it. If anyone says that they actually saw it (the crash), they’re lying. Nobody could see anything because it was so foggy,” he said.
NTSB said on Tuesday that the helicopter could have avoided the hill it crashed into if it had been flying 20 to 30 feet higher.
But NTSB investigator Bill English added that the surrounding hills would have required an even higher altitude to clear.
“It’s important to realize that there’s not one hill,” English saidat NTSB’s press conference. “It’s a ravine with undulating terrain, so the small outcropping that had the main impact in it, the main impact was about 20 to 30 feet from the top of that small hill. But there are actually other higher hills surrounding it.”
If you would like to help the families of the victims of the crash, consider donating to theMamba on Three Fund. Contributions to theMamba Sports Foundationwill help support youth sports.
source: people.com
