Excellent links and perspective - thx OSold salt wrote: ↑Tue Jan 28, 2020 7:15 pmStill don't know bill -- the GPS track looks like a buttonhook course reversal at the very end, but it also shows a rapid ascent 2300 ft, which would have allowed him to clear the terrain if he was still in controlled flight. He may have departed controlled flight at some point. I not sure of the accuracy of GPS track & altitude being reported.
He may have seen the onrushing terrain, did a panic climb, lost control, departed controlled flight & possibly overstressed the tail boom or dynamic components.
The NTSB will piece together the debris, evaluate the ATC tape & radar data, the GPS track, the GPS app on his I-phone, & anything else they can pull together.
The pilot should have been very familiar with that terrain. He worked at a flight school at Van Nuys airport for 9 years, got his flight training there & instructed there. He was very much at ease coordinating with Burbank & Van Nuys towers & transiting their airspace.
He got back on course & tracked overhead Hwy 101 for a good stretch, He made it through some of the mountain pass.
He was not trying to land at that site. The debris pattern indicates high speed impact with terrain.
The great thing about helos. You can land them anywhere.
In one 3 year tour of duty in a squadron, I did 3 off airport landings in farmers fields.
2 for maint emergs, 1 for weather (icing & unforecast snow squall).
Flew 'em all out the next day, after enjoying local hospitality.
Which makes we wonder why he didn't land at Van Nuys when he passed close aboard the airport.
He had the airport in sight & was talking to the tower.
These videos are helpful. The pilot speak can be difficult to understand, but it's revealing.
Linked rather than embedded them, so you can go full screen to interpret.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSHpbGhy3Ko
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_cont ... =emb_title
Had he popped up sooner & not lost control, SoCal approach could have picked him up.
They apparently got a "hand off" from Van Nuys tower & were expecting him.
It could be that neither the pilot nor Van Nuys was aware of the milk bowl fog at the other end of the San Fernando Valley at that time.Which makes we wonder why he didn't land at Van Nuys when he passed close aboard the airport.
He had the airport in sight & was talking to the tower.
NTSB lead investigator said he missed not hitting the terrain by 20-30 feet. In those conditions, little to no margin for error - 20-30 feet isn't much but it made all the difference in the resultant CFIT although I think you are correct that nobody knows for sure at this point whether last moments were controlled or uncontrolled. NTSB press conference yesterday - long but substantive.
"The day before the crash, Zobayan (the pilot) had made the same trip from John Wayne Airport in Orange County, where Bryant lived, to Camarillo, near the Mamba Sports Academy in Thousand Oaks, where the basketball tournament was being held. Homendy said Zobayan had used a more direct route for the roughly 90-mile trip northwest, and that the skies were clear."