Hello again and welcome to Aviation News Talk, a weekly show with relevant news and flying tips for pilots and student pilots to help keep you safe. I'm Max Truscott. This week, the NTSB held a four-hour-long board meeting and went through the factors that led to the Kobe Bryant helicopter crash last year when the helicopter entered IMC conditions and suddenly plummeted to the ground.

Like most accidents, there were multiple factors involved, and in a moment you'll hear from the

NTSP board and NTSB staff as they discussed the accident. Last week in episode 176, we talked

with Tom Turner about the myths about stalls and the traffic pattern.

So if you miss that episode, you may want to check it out.

And this is a listener-supported show.

So if you're not already a supporter, you can sign up to support us at AviationNewsTalk.com slash awesome or aviation newstalk.com slash PayPal.

Now here is the NTSB's Invest investigator in charge Bill English giving an overview of what

happened. On January 26th, 2020, at 9.45 a. Pacific Standard Time, a Sikorsky S76B helicopter,

November 7.2 Echo X-ray, operated by Island Express helicopters, collided with hilly terrain near the city of

Calabasas, California. The pilot and eight passengers were fatally injured, and the helicopter was

destroyed by impact forces and fire. The helicopter was not equipped with a flight data or

cockpit voice recorder, nor was it required to be. The flight was an on-demand charter, operated under the provisions of 14 Code of Federal

Regulations Part 135, to take the passengers from John Wayne Orange County Airport in Santa Ana,

California, to the Camarillo, California airport for a basketball tournament.

The weather that morning included a widespread

area of coastal clouds associated with a marine layer, a stable, humid air mass, about 1 to 2,000 feet

thick, often characterized by stratus clouds at its top and the potential for fog formation

in some areas below. There were no hazardous conditions such as

icing or thunderstorms. Mr. Richards will have further details on the meteorological factors in his

presentation. The flight was operated with a single pilot under visual flight rules or VFR,

as Island Express was not authorized to conduct passenger carrying flights under instrument flight rules.

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