LOS ANGELES • The helicopter ferrying National Basketball Association legend Kobe Bryant and eight others that slammed into a hillside near Los Angeles on Sunday was not equipped with a device designed to warn pilots when they are in danger of hitting rising terrain.
While investigators cautioned they were not sure whether a Terrain Avoidance and Warning System (Taws) - a device required on airliners - would have prevented the crash, it might have helped pilot Ara Zobayan be more aware as he neared the fog-shrouded hills.
The system, while optional on helicopters, can help prevent crashes, especially when pilots have limited visibility, by providing a detailed image of surrounding terrain and triggering auditory and visual warnings.
The helicopter was plummeting at more than 600m per minute as it made a sharp left turn, National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) member Jennifer Homendy said at a briefing on Tuesday.
"We know this was a high-energy impact crash," she said. "This is a pretty steep descent at high speed, so it wouldn't be a normal landing speed.
"Certainly, Taws could have helped to provide information to the pilot on what terrain the pilot was flying in."
NTSB's investigator-in-charge William English also said Island Express Helicopters, which owns the Sikorsky S-76B chopper, was not permitted by aviation regulators to fly into the kind of fog and clouds that apparently enveloped the aircraft in its final moments before crashing.
It is still not clear why Zobayan took that flight path and investigators expect to take a year to 18 months before concluding the investigation, although they plan to release a preliminary report within 10 days.
About a minute before the crash, the pilot radioed an air-traffic controller to say he was climbing to avoid a cloud layer.
When asked what he planned to do, there was no reply and John Cox, a former airline pilot and president of Safety Operating Systems, believes it is possible that he was making an abrupt turn to escape the clouds.
"When helicopters turn sharply, they tend to lose lift and can drop rapidly if pilots aren't careful," he said. "That rate of descent can pick up very quickly."
Island Express had suffered four crashes spread over 35 years before Sunday's crash.
A mid-air collision in 1985 and an emergency landing in 2008 killed a total of four people, according to government records.
In 2016, the company paid a US$8,500 (S$11,560) civil penalty to the Federal Aviation Administration for failing to perform drug tests on its employees.
There is, however, no indication that the previous crashes or enforcement cases were related to Sunday's accident.
Representatives for the company did not respond to inquiries on Tuesday.
At the Staples Centre, where Bryant spent his entire 20-season career with the Lakers, lifting five championship titles, NBA greats Jerry West, Shaquille O'Neal, Dwyane Wade, Reggie Miller and Charles Barkley were in tears as they mourned his death at the age of 41. Their raw emotions were on display in an hour-long televised tribute.
"Haven't felt a pain that sharp in a while," said O'Neal, a teammate of Bryant on three championship-winning Laker teams.
"It was sort of like a triple stabbing to the heart.
"The fact we lost probably the world's greatest Laker, the world's greatest basketball player, it's going to be hard to get over it."
Heartbroken fans have built a shrine of items outside the arena to honour Bryant.
While no details about a public memorial have been announced, celebrity website TMZ has said city officials have identified the LA Coliseum as a likely venue. It can hold 80,000 people, as opposed to the 20,000-capacity of the Staples Centre.
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, BLOOMBERG, NYTIMES
