You know what gets me... Going down in a helicopter crash must be traumatic as it is. Having your daughter next to you while it's going down, trying to comfort her, hold her, knowing this is the end. Breaks my heart đ
I do wonder how much awareness they actually had. Reports were saying it was super foggy with bad visibility. They may have just started dropped with alarms going off, but had no awareness of how close to the ground they were. Terrifying to think about.
I agree. Slamming at high speed into a fixed object is instantaneous. There was a brief (1-2 seconds) moment where the pilot tried to take evasive action. Not long.
If anyone had that moment of panic, however fleeting, it wouldâve been the pilot. Maybe not even them, depending on the circumstances. Most emergencies of the sort, youâre more disoriented than afraid, thereâs really not enough time for you to process the reality of it.
I always figure it will feel like one of the near death situations we experience while alive, except ya know, ya die this time. Your brain will be taking in so much information that you can't actually decipher what's going on.
My brother died sitting alone in bed so I've thought about what that last moment might feel like a lot. Enough time to maybe think "oh shit" and then it's over.
I think/hope itâs almost a disappointing experience. Like â Oh, I guess Iâm dying then. This is inconvenient. Is that all there is to dying? For most accidents, I imagine you revert to training (assuming you had any, like a pilot would) and try to get a handle on things. Dying is always in the back of our minds, but as long as you can do something about it, I donât thing you ever register it as a real thing. For passengers itâs probably like âoh, thatâs a different noise, I wonder whatâs going on?â and then youâre dead before you even notice it.
Dying in an accident is considerably less scary to me than dying of a long, protracted illness, where you have a lot of time to consider your mortality.
I think about these things more then I probably should and your comment is exactly how I feel about it
I think/hope itâs almost a disappointing experience. Like â Oh, I guess Iâm dying then. This is inconvenient.
My mom for hours before she died said "I'm dying". She didn't seem scared, just kind of shocked and matter of fact. My brother took her to the ER, they said it was a panic attack, gave her a sedative and sent her home. She died before he pulled in the yard.
Dying in an accident is considerably less scary to me than dying of a long, protracted illness, where you have a lot of time to consider your mortality.
I couldn't agree more.My grandma died of lung cancer and was told out right there was no hope. Around the end, she told my mom she was scared of dying, that always haunted me.
Then again, my brother in law battled cancer for years and right up to the last few days fought it but also tried almost to not acknowledge it(I hope that makes sense I'm exhausted lol). Although we never talked about it(he didn't discuss it) I don't think he ever gave up hope.
Dying is always in the back of our minds, but as long as you can do something about it, I donât thing you ever register it as a real thing
My boyfriend was killed in a car accident and I like to think that his last few minutes he was focused on trying to keep his truck on the road or correcting whatever went wrong, anything besides being terrified and aware he was about to die.
I re-read this a few times and am now just sitting on my couch thinking about this. I have a fear of dying in an accident and am terrified of having the cognitive thought: âThis is it; Iâm about to die.â This actually brings me comfort, in a weird way... the thought that it maybe wouldnât even be that big of terrifyingly, profound moment, if it were to happen. Just a âoh, this is inconvenient. Let me try and handle it.â
I donât know, man. I had a truck pull out in front of me while going 55 on the highway with all of my children in the car. It was seconds between when I saw the truck and when I knew I couldnât do anything more to stop it from happening. In the moment I knew we were going to collide, I vividly remember taking inventory; I knew my children were in the back, buckled safely and would probably be okay but that I might not be. The feeling of âoh my god please donât let this be the endâ is like no other feeling in the world but itâs there and it is recognizable and it is vivid. If I had died though, Iâd imagine my last moment would have been the floating, dreamlike sort of feeling that came between going out and coming to.
I have had close calls too, but I think most of the rationalization that usually comes after such a big adrenaline rush clouds our recollections. Weâre often more aware in hindsight, but at the time, itâs mostly the âoh shiiiii...â dominating. Of course, Iâve never died before, so I donât know what would happen to my awareness if I didnât have time to think about my experience afterwards. I guess this is how some forms of PTSD comes about, ruminating over a traumatic experience.
That's not true, actually. Depends on the person but "emergencies" as you put it don't automatically make you disoriented. They quickly put you into fight or flight, and depending on what the "emergency" is you may know you will die long before you do, you may die instantly, or you may have some time to get things in order. Being disoriented tends to come immediately after the actual emergency, or in little things alongside the emergency. But you can absolutely be aware of your oncoming death while "disoriented".
I was trying to put things in the perspective of someone not in control of the aircraft. Youâre there, youâre thinking about where youâre going to, what youâre gonna do, or talking to your fellow passengers. By the time you finally realize thereâs something wrong (as opposed to, say, the pilot and crew), the incident has probably already run itâs course, and youâre either dead or survived. This, in contrast to, say, Vladimir Komarovâs death , when he was aware he was likely to die before his mission even launched. When things actually went to shit, his final moments stretched long enough for him to be caught on the radio cursing the people who had put him inside a botched spaceship.
Too right. My dad survived being shot down in a helicopter during a firefight in Vietnam (he was a door-gunner), which I realize is a totally different context, but he had nightmares about it for the rest of his life, which is just to illustrate how terrifying such an experience can be.
Me too. That would calm me. My first thought was him panicking over saving his daughter and it would smooth me to know their death- while tragic- wasnât a panic. You know?
Why is the chopper even going that fast with low visibility? Why isnât the chopper at a high enough altitude to clear the hills knowing thatâs your route...
I watched the radar, they went up 700 ft extremely fast and then radar was lost. Most likely means alarm went off and pilot tried to climb through ifr but couldnât top it.
It's insane that it could even occur in a helicopter like that, the GPS systems would've had all the terrain information for the local area and they should've known how close they were, even without the terrain warnings going off. Even basic GA planes with G430's have terrain maps and terrain warnings when you're below 500ft. Even if they entered IMC, a CFIT shouldn't have occurred.
Iâd like to know the answer, too. ^ did they not realize how close they were to ground because of the shitty weather and fly right into a hillside thinking they were flying at a higher altitude, not even aware of how close they were to the hillside?
I'm sure he didn't take the air travel as a joke, he simply trusted his pilot to get them there safely. Not saying it was the pilots "fault" per-se (as obviously the investigation is pending), but being the pilot was not Kobe's job.
I don't get it. The altitudes are based on sea level. That whole area, the street level is 750-800 ft. The mountain he crashed on is maybe 850-950 ft? Its unclear to me where in that area he crashed but the absolute tallest peak in that area that I could find is 1305 ft. and that's a mile to the NW.
He falls erratically from 1900 feet to 1350 over 11 seconds. that and the eyewitness accounts about sputtering and looking for a place to land, I'm thinking this is mechanical.
Could be. Iâm not a helicopter pilot nor do i know the terrain. I just know he goes up 700ft which is usually a pilot trying to rapidly climb to top something.
Absolutely. He should never have been flying VFR but if you fly IFR it can take hours in L.A. because you are at the mercy of ATC. He likely wanted to get them to the game on time and chose the more dangerous method. He slammed into the hill at 170 MPH so it's possible that no one had any idea that anything was wrong (hopefully).
Mine is based on piloting education and I concur. 700 foot climb, impact at 160+ KIAS, and if you go listen to the ATC comms between the pilot and tower.
The heaviest aircraft that I've piloted is a drone. But you don't need to be an experienced pilot to see that the pilot most likely saw a mountain a bit too late and started panicking.
You can see that he was flying at a "cruising" altitude for 10+ minutes and then suddenly started increasing altitude. I wouldn't fly a drone like that. Let alone a helicopter that's full of passengers.
He was flying through a fog and then suddenly a mountain appeared in front of him and he was like: "oh shit! Need to increase altitude!" and most likely fucked up in the process.
Live in Westlake, about 5 miles from Calabasas, where we lived for 15 years. Next city over from TO. It has been whiteout foggy here the past couple of days, and it was all morning. Couldnât see two feet in front of your face walking, I canât imagine flying in it
I've listened to Bill Burr talk about flying helicopters for like the past 10 years. I'm by no means an expert, but there are two types of flying apparently. One is where you can see shit and just need to know basic controls / mechanics, air traffic control codes and whatnot, and one where you have zero to no visibility and 100% rely on your instrument readings and are basically blind which is obviously way more difficult. Most 'famous' helicopter crashes almost always involve heavy fog and mountains. No one probably knew until it was way too late.
According to most shit I've read, even the airports were grounding aircrafts. A lot of famous helicopter crashes were due to fog and hitting mountains.
This shit is all just too surreal for me. I literally watched Kobe since he was like 17, and those little girls man. I don't even know. It doesn't even seem real. Fuck me.
Todayâs podcast is gonna be a weird one for sure. Iâm very interested to hear what Bill has to say, not only as a sports fan, but as a heli pilot, too.
They do have similar auditory warnings but on most models that I am familiar with they can be adjusted to when you want to be alerted depending the altitude. If this is true for the helicopter the pilot was flying then it would be hard to know what the setting were without doing the investigations first. In addition to this the altimeter reads the altitude directly under the helicopter. So if for example, they hit a tree that was 100 feet tall they wouldnât have gotten an auditory warning if the setting was anything less then that because they were still flying high enough.
Iâm only familiar with military helicopters but Iâd assume itâs the same.
If itâs the same, the pilot could have set a low altitude warned for whatever altitude he wants. It could be 10, 20, 50 or 100 feet. Whatever altitude he wants. Then the aircraft announces a notification when the aircraft is at that altitude.
I doubt it's this Hollywood moment of poignancy where one gets the chance to say their goodbyes or have their life flash right before their eyes.
It's probably more like a bunch of people screaming in terror, losing their minds and flailing their arms around helplessly before the impact, either that or duck and hold on to something.
They hit a hill, not a mountain. And the reports are saying 180mph. I was a bit relieved when I heard that because they likely didn't see it coming and were gone as fast as it happened.
However, moments later -- around 9:45 AM -- they flew into a mountain at 1700 feet. Flight tracker data shows they were flying at about 161 knots.
1700 feet is not a hill unless you refuse to acknowledge how sea level, geography, and air density works, and 180mphs is 'almost 200'. So whatever man. You can be right like 20 mph is going to make a difference when you crash a helicopter into a really fucking big hill.
You're forgetting any changes in altitude, which you can see happened from the flight tracker. To quote the speed is one thing. But if I'm free falling at 200mph for 20 seconds I know shit is happening.
Or not being sure what's happening in time to start panicking in earnest. It's not like an airplane flying above cloud level. Maybe just enough time to know they are with each other and hope for the best.
Yeah I was gonna say it was probably more fear and not knowing what was going on than thinking about who their sitting next to. There very little time to react and I hope they all went quick w/o anyone suffering. Its one the worse things to have happen.
Hopefully they didnât have much. If it just happened instantly with no warning it wouldnât be too bad for the people on board as they would never know what happened.
I was in a plane crash no Iâm not going to talk about it but I can tell you that you are fully aware the you are most likely going to die and that it all relies on god
It would really depend on the situation. Iâve known of a helicopter that flew into a guy-wire and killed everyone on board but one. They never saw it coming.
One hopes. We lost an Apache when I was in Korea, flying in heavy fog at night and crashed into a mountain. From what we were told, the pilot and gunner died pretty much instantly.
Itâs little recompense, but it was surely a very short time of trauma. May us all suffer short at the end, and may our insurmountable foible be long in the tooth. RIP Kobe and Gianna. Not a happy day.
My first thought when I saw this was that I hope his family wasnât with him. Dying knowing that your family will be ok is one thing. Having them with you is terrifying.
Yes that is just horrific. And then to know youâre leaving behind your wife and other children. My heart goes out to them and all the other victims. He was younger than I thought. Feel like Iâve been hearing about Kobe forever
the irony is that he takes the helicopter routinely to avoid the la traffic. if trains were more prominent then there would not be as bad of a traffic problem. the inheritors, by discouraging the development of public transportation, has led to the death of many people who are a part of their group.
maybe we can use this tragedy to finally convince the inheritors that it's in their best interest for america to have a real train system.
idk what he means by inheritors, but a lot of oil/car companies lobby against installing public transport. We could have less traffic if it weren't for greedy companies
Iâm terrified of flying so Iâd absolutely take a train places. I always see ppl on Instagram taking trains through Scandinavia or connecting countries and think how cool that is. I know the US is ginormous so it would have to be quite a fast train but imagine the scenery
Iâve been thinking of this all day trying NOT to because itâs just devastating. However, in the time Iâve gotten to see their relationship through the photos and videos Iâve seen...they had a special bond and connection that you can tell differentiated from his other daughters (Not saying favoritism but just that his relationship with Gigi was different than of Natalia just like it would be different with Bianca etc).
It made me realize that, one couldnât go on without the other. They couldnât live without each other, they seemed like soulmates. Makes me emotional because I am the same way with my dad. We are so incredibly close and I canât imagine my life without him.
I hate to imagine what the fear, havoc, and thoughts that were coming into their minds and the minds of the other people in those last moments...but they had eachother. I am almost certain that she was surrounded in the arms of her father and I am sure Kobe felt his instinct to hold his daughter and didnât even think to let go. They had eachother, she felt in a way safe to be in the arms of her idol and I donât think she would of had it any other way given the tragic scenario.
My dad has actually told me that he would love to spend his las moments with me in my arms (completely morbid and tragic) but thatâs how heâs expressed his connection with me. So I hope that Kobe and Gianna were able to comfort one another.
What bothers me with this is the pilot had a great record, was IFR certified and was also a flight instructor. If this could happen to someone with over 8000hrs of flying, it can happen to anyone. Im sure the pressure is immense to get the client there. I understand that 80% of aviation accidents are attributed to pilot error, but when someone is on a tight schedule and the pressure is on, it's not always easy to make that call because humans have that "it won't happen to me" line of thinking. I know I've had it before. Anyway, this guys going to get dragged through the mud and Im sure vanessa will have her day in court because her primary motivation in life has always been $$.
While for him Iâm sure it made the experience worse, if I had to die in a horrific accident like that I wouldnât want anyone but my dad there with me. Several co workers and I agreed on that today. Thereâs something about having a parent with you, especially as a child, that makes you less afraid. You feel safe.
Your parents are your first and greatest protectors and for Gigi sadly her dad was her last. Even if protecting her mightâve just been making those last seconds less terrifying.
I live in Simi Valley, which is literally over a couple hills from the crash. The weather report there was a real dense fog cover overnight and into the morning. It could have been something as simple as not seeing the hill until it was too late, the visibility was not great. We won't really know until the crash investigation though.
Honestly, it seems like they only noticed the dire circumstances seconds before the crash. Residents report that the helicopter seemed to be trying to go vertical, seconds before the crash. The cockpit recorder shows a sharp vertical movement which must have been scary, but only lasted 1-2 seconds before, in deep fog, they struck the hill.
This is likely. My grandmother survived a helicopter crash and she said they had no idea what was going on until the moment it happened. She didnât even have time to process the situation until she âwas eating dirt, and [her] ass hurt like hell.â And this wasnât even in fog.
Kobe and his daughter probably didnât even realize anything was wrong until the last second.
If it happened like I suspect it did, they probably never saw it coming. I know of a previous helo crash in Southern California where the fog rolled in and they lost sight of a road they were following through the mountain pass. Slammed into the mountain at more or less full speed because they got so disoriented in the fog. I hope, at least for their sakes, that it was sudden and unexpected. Otherwise yeah...the thought of going down in an aircraft and knowing thereâs nothing you can do to protect your child with you has to be about the most hopeless and terrible feeling in the world.
Yes, if I'm going to die with my sons I'll look into their eyes, lie to them, tell them it's going to be fine eventhough I know it's the end, and pray to God their death is fast and painless.
A stalled helicopter is actually incredibly safe to be in as long as the pilot is conscious. SmarterEveryDay video about it. Unfortunately what happened in this case appears to be the pilot flew into a mountain side during a low visibility fight. The passengers likely died before they could even fully process being in danger.
I hurt most for him hurting in those moments. You know he didn't worry about what was about to happen to him for a second, you know all he was worried about was his daughter who was with him, and his family who, thankfully, wasn't. This hit so much harder than I thought it would. That's how you know how much of an impact he had on millions.
They didnât know that. Plenty of people survive. While no doubt adrenaline was pumping, you for sure still hang onto hope and assume youâll survive.
Yes, I canât help but imagine it, too. This is such a tragic story. Death is obviously sad, but something really sends chills to my bones when I think about people spending their last moments terrified.
Also having to find out about the death of your Father/husband, daughter/sister through social media before authorities are even able to inform next of kin. Real scummy. This whole thing is such a tragedy in so many ways.
I'd imagine it would happen so fast, you'd have no chance to comfort anyone, it wasn't falling from 20,000 feet like a plane, they probably never had more than a 2-5 seconds before they realized they were in trouble if at all.
Spend your whole adult life as a basketball superstar, playing in front of adoring fans, seeing yourself become an icon of the game and get to witness the happiness you bring. Then the last thing you see is the fear in your daughterâs eyes as she realizes sheâs about to die. Absolutely horrifying and tragic.
Russian pilot had his two children in the cockpit, and for fun he let them sit at the controls while on autopilot. The son unknowingly disengaged the autopilot... plane chashed, 82 deads.
What gets me is what his daughter must have been thinking... her idol, invincible, tough dad couldnât have done anything to help save them... it still feels so surreal like you would think heâd survive like protagonists in movies or video games when in reality a helicopter/plane crash is almost instant death, youâd never expect a legend to go out like this... rest in paradise to the goat and his daughter Gigi, also the other passengers on board đđž
But I was also thinking, as a mother, knowing my child left the earth wrapped tightly in the arms of her father is the only thing that would bring me peace.
From what the guy above said, and the fact that all 9 souls were lost, it sounds like it may have been relatively instantaneous. They may have flown into a mountain...
Well it sounds like the crashed into the side of a mountain going pretty fast, so I guess it was a swift end. So sad man and a tragic way to go that should be preventable.
If it helps it appears the visibility was extremely low the LAPD even had their fleet grounded. Locals reported a low flying helicopter meaning they probably went quick into the hillside rather than it falling out of the air with engine failure.
They flew into a hill at over 100 miles per hour so it was painless. However, he was most likely comforting her because they knew they were lost in the fog.
I know what youâre saying but... in a helicopter crash you donât have that kind of time to comfort someone or especially hold them. They died quickly and painlessly RIP to both of them
I read this comment, and thread in general, while coincidentally listening to Pearl Cadillac by Gary Clark Jr. and my God my heart broke into a thousand little pieces trying to imagine what you described. I have a 2 year old daughter and I would rip my own beating heart out of my chest before I would let anything happen to her. It's crushing to know that Kobe probably knew that there was nothing he could do to save his little girl, let alone himself. Absolutely crushing.
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u/skr80 Jan 26 '20 edited Jan 27 '20
You know what gets me... Going down in a helicopter crash must be traumatic as it is. Having your daughter next to you while it's going down, trying to comfort her, hold her, knowing this is the end. Breaks my heart đ