The pilot was flying Special VFR. That's a request pilots must make when weather conditions don't meet Visual Flight Rules (VFR). One hope of flying in Special VFR is that the conditions on the destination end are much better than on the take-off end. And they were.
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Air Traffic Controller at Burbank had them in a holding pattern to land for 15 minutes. He asks the pilot does he want to follow the 118 freeway, and pilot calmly responds he'll follow the 118, then loop around Van Nuys to track the 101 freeway.
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Burbank ATC acknowledges and then hands the pilot off to Van Nuys ATC. The controller at Van Nuys gives the pilot the weather conditions: Calm wind, Visibility 2.5 (bad, not horrendous), cloud ceiling 1100 feet, overcast. Advises him to continue westbound on 118.
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Pilot acknowledges instructions, informs ATC he's at 1400 feet continuing westbound. Controller asks does he want to be patched through to SoCal Tower when he clears Van Nuys, he responds 'affirmative'. Everything to this point is normal, relaxed and professional on all ends.
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Pilot asks to turn southwest to the 101, Van Nuys controller approves. At 09:39.16 she asks has he encountered VFR conditions (better visibility), and pilot responds in affirmative that he's now in VFR conditions flying at 1500 feet. She then patches him through to SoCal Tower.
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SoCal ATC attempts to contact the pilot a couple of times but gets no response/inaudible, likely due to the low altitude of the helicopter. 09:44:12 controller advises the pilot that he's too low for a flight-following path. Around 90 seconds later, at 9:45am they crash.
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Put simply: -They took off in bad conditions. -They were circling for ~15 minutes waiting to land. -The pilot, already in bad fog, turned directly into atrocious fog in a hilly area.
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They crashed at 185mph. The pilot certainly knew he was in trouble but passengers likely had little-to-no clue what was even happening and, even if they briefly did, they almost certainly didn't suffer impacting the ground at that speed. That's a small mercy.
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History has a way of constantly repeating itself, though. Aaliyah taking off with all that baggage in 2001, Stevie Ray Vaughan taking off in thick fog in 1990. But I feel anyone looking to blame Kobe, the other adults on board or the pilot is doing them a huge disservice.
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Yes, it's easy (and trite) with benefit of hindsight to say they should have just drove the 50 miles and left a little earlier to go by car. It's easy to say Stevie Ray Vaughan should have waited until the fog cleared or Aaliyah's entourage should have left some baggage behind.
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But we all make marginal calls every day of our lives. On another day, the wind picks up a fraction, the fog sweeps by, they land on time, play the game and life goes joyously on. Except this one day, it didn't pick up and that was it.
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Rather than apportion blame, focus on the fragility of life. We make dozens of 50-50 or 40-60 calls daily. To leave your home at 7:15am or or 7:16am is a marginal, subliminal call we make every day but that solitary minute could see you involved in - or avoiding - a crash.
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It's all so senseless. No rhyme or reason to any of it. Carl Sagan was bang on the money in his Pale Blue Dot speech, when speaking about the humbling experience of how insignificant we all are: "To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another".
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