February 9, 2021 • 23 mins
The National Transportation Safety Board has arrived at the crash site in Calabasas, CA. NTSB Investigators have also brought in the FBI. We also get official confirmation of the names of those on board the helicopter.
The Los Angeles County Sheriff has some choice words for an online news outlet.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
The Los Angeles County Sheriff has already had a couple
of briefings with the media, and the medical examiner has
given his overview of how the remains of those on
board are being handled by Now, a go team of
eighteen specialists and investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board
has arrived at the crash site and will take over
(00:28):
the scene and the investigation. Our mission is not to
just determine what happened, but why it happened and how
it happened to prevent a similar accident from ever happening again.
I'm Steve Gregory in Los Angeles and this is the
death and life of Kobe Bryant. It's January day after
(00:50):
the crash of the Sikorski s B. MTSB Board member
Jennifer Hammondy is head of the team and briefs the media.
We established parties to the investor gation, the Federal Aviation Administration, Skorski,
Pratt and Whitney, Canada Island Express, and the National Air
Traffic Controllers Association. We also established investigative groups Operations and
(01:14):
Human Performance, air Traffic Control, airworthiness power Plants. We also
have a weather investigator. Our investigators began documenting the scene,
collecting evidence, taking pictures, and we had drones uh in
the air to begin mapping the wreckage. There have been
(01:37):
a lot of questions about the FBI and why the
FBI is here. The NTSB has a memorandum of understanding
with the FBI to help us collect evidence. They are
essentially a force multiplier for the NTSB. There's no criminal
portion of this investigation. This is our first full day.
(02:01):
We're continuing to gather information. I do have some factual
information on the flight path. Initial information shows that the
helicopter was flying under visual flight Rules or VFR, from
John Wayne Airport to just southeast of Burbank Airport. Around Burbank,
(02:23):
the pilot requested to transit controlled airspace under special visual
flight Rules. Special VFR is an air traffic control authorization
that allows an aircraft to proceed through controlled airspace at
less than the basic VFR minimums of a thousand foot
(02:45):
ceiling and three miles visibility. A TC advised the pilot
there was a delay due to traffic. While awaiting approval,
the helicopter circled for twelve minutes until the special vFire
was proved by air traffic control. The helicopter transited the
Burbank and Van Nuys airspace at four dred feet and
(03:10):
proceeded south then west. The pilot requested flight following to
continue to Camario, but Southern California tray con advised the
pilot that they were too low for flight following. Approximately
four minutes later, the pilot advised they were climbing to
(03:30):
avoid a cloud layer. When a TC asked what the
pilot planned to do, there was no reply. Radar data
indicates the helicopter climbed to feet and then began a
left descending turn. Last radar contact was around am and
is consistent with the accident location. I do anticipate we
(03:55):
will be here about five days unseen to collect perishable evidence.
We're going to continue to document the scene. We are
not here to determine the cause of the accident. We
will not determine that on scene. She answers questions from
the media. The question is should the pilot have been
(04:16):
flying in that in the fog uh at that time.
I mean, that's part of our investigation. We look at
weather and we'll have to determine that at some point.
The question is to describe the wreckage scene and whether
I had been to the recage uh to the scene.
I did go to the scene for several hours. There
(04:38):
is a impact area on one of the hills, and
the piece of the tail is down the hill on
the left side of the hill. The fuselage is over
on the other side of of that hill, and then
the main rotor is about a hundred yards beyond that.
(05:03):
It looks about The debris field is about five hundreds
of six hundred. The question is was did we recover
a black box? There wasn't a black box, and there
isn't requirement to have a black box on this question
is was there any chance for survival? That's part of
the investigation. I mean, it was a pretty devastating accident scene.
(05:27):
The question is how how confident are we that will
find a definitive cause we do this all the time.
Bryant's wife, Vanessa, had requested a temporary flight restriction or
t f R from the f a A, which closed
off the air space in a five mile radius with
(05:49):
an altitude of five thousand feet. Bryant said she did
this to protect the privacy of those on board. Tuesday, January,
the NTSB has spent a full day a gathering evidence
from the crash site and gives a status report. I
wanted to give you an update of what we accomplished today.
I spent most of the day on the accident site.
(06:10):
A lot of our investigators were on scene continuing to
examine and document the wreckage. We also looked for the
significant components like actuators and gearboxes to make sure that
they all arrived with the helicopter on scene, and we
were able to verify that. We also mentioned yesterday that
(06:34):
the pilot had an iPad with four flight on it,
so we were looking for electronic devices as we always do.
We were able to recover an iPad and a cell phone.
We do not know if that's the pilots iPad, so
we're going to take those personal electronic devices. We're going
(06:55):
to send them back to our lab at headquarters for
further analysis. Us We also located maintenance records in the wreckage.
We are not we can't discuss we're not going to
discuss the maintenance records because we haven't looked at those.
We found them, we documented them, that will become that
(07:17):
will come later. We found the airworthiness certificate, the registration,
the company's operating manual weight and balance sheets and everything
we would expect would be on the aircraft. We also
worked with drones today to help the airworthiness group locate
(07:42):
those significant components and continue to document the scene. And
then we duplicated part of the flight path, so we
flew part of the the end part of the flight
path with our drones using using a d s B data.
(08:03):
Recovery operations occurred on scene today. A recovery crew was
loading the wreckage in large white tarp bags which were
airlifted by helicopter from the scene and loaded on a
truck and will be moved to a secure location. The
(08:25):
UH that has already occurred. UH so the that is
on the truck and ready to go. So we have
turned the site officially over to local authorities. We are
done on on the site. Some of our accident investigators
began interviews today. We interview we're working on interviews with
(08:49):
air traffic Control, and we had interviews with the operator.
I don't have any information to share with you at
this time about those interviews because those interviews are ongoing
and we haven't been able to connect. They are working
on setting up other interviews for the next several days
at three PM, I held a family briefing by a
(09:12):
conference call. We do that with every accident investigation. Either
we hold a family briefing to update them on the investigation,
make sure they're aware of information before we provide it publicly,
and UM go through the process, the NTSPS investigative process,
and what they can expect over the next several weeks
(09:35):
and months. I'm not going to discuss the family briefing.
You're going to get asked if I get questions about
who was on the call, what was discussed, I'm not
going to answer that. Out of respect for the families,
I am going to provide you some information for some
questions that were asked yesterday and the day before and
(09:57):
over the past couple hours. With respect to the pilot,
I mentioned that on the second class medical certificate, which
was dated July, the pilot had two hundred hours of
flight time. Obviously that was July, so the pilot has
more flight time because it's been some time since then.
(10:18):
Out of that, the pilot had twelve hundred and fifty
hours of flight time on the S seventy helicopter, so
fifty hours on the helicopters, so that's a good amount
of experience. He's also been with a company for ten years.
(10:38):
We do know that the day before the accident, he
flew from John Wayne Airport Airport to Camaro and uh
the weather was clear. It was a different flight path,
more direct, and occurred about an hour later than the
one on Sunday. I was asked about the descent rate
(10:59):
of the helicopter. We know that the helicopter was at
when it lost communications with air traffic control. The descent
rate for the helicopter was over two thousand ft a minute,
so we know that this was a high energy impact
(11:21):
crash as the and the helicopter was in a descending
left bank. So with that, I want to stay. This
is the last press conference that we're going to have.
Los Angeles County Sheriff alex Bia Nueva also provides an
update for the media, but moments before he's about to speak,
he gets an update the ele Count of Corners office
releasing the identities of four of the victims who perish
(11:45):
in this crash, and those are as follows John Alta, Belly,
Sarah Chester, Era Zobayan, the pilot, and Kobe Bryant. They
have finished our identification, the next of can have been notified.
In all four circumstances, the Corners had removed all remains.
(12:09):
They're going through the identification process to conclude with the
other five victims of the accident. The emergency ordinance remains
in effect, so it's a misdemeanor crime to access the
crash site, and just for your own safety and common sense,
it's a hazmat site, so it needs to be clean up.
It will take probably five to seven days and finish it.
They have to remove everything by hand because they can't
(12:31):
access it with heavy vehicles. Within the next few days,
the l A County Medical Examiner's Office would release the
names of the remaining five people who died on that flight.
Forty six year old carry Out to Belly, thirty eight
year old Christina Mauser, fourteen year old Alyssa Altera Belly,
thirteen year old Peyton Chester, and thirteen year old Gianna Bryant.
(12:58):
Coming up the Ely County versus TMZ and we learn
more about the others who died in the accident. As
the death and life of Kobe Bryant continues for some
(13:30):
the official release of the names of those who died
comes a little late between the helicopters manifest friends and
family of the victims, The names of those on board
the flight had already been released through media reports. The
official naming of the victims becomes a source spot for
l A County Sheriff alex Fia Noueva. At the first
press briefing following the crash, he specifically addresses the naming
(13:52):
of the victims. We have a manifest that indications that
there was nine people on board the aircraft, the pilot
plus eight individual Uh. There is white speculation is whose
identities are. However, it is being entirely inappropriate right now
to identify anyone by name until the corner has made
the identification through their very deliberative prophets, and they've made
(14:15):
made notifications and next of kin, and it would be
extremely disrespectful to understand that your loved one of those
parents that you learn about it from TMZ. That is
just wholly inappropriate. So we're not going to be going there.
I had a chance to ask the sheriff why he
called out TMZ by name. I got that from Vanessa herself.
(14:35):
She told me that she found out from TMZ that
her husband was on the flight, and I thought that
is the most horrible thing possible that you could learn
the definitely a loved one through radio or TV. It's like, wow,
that's that's I thought that was just wildly inappropriate. I
think that's the very words I used. It's just inappropriate.
(14:56):
I think the families need to know from the authority,
be it myself, be at the corner's office or fire department.
Once as confirmed, okay, then report what you ever want to,
but that need to be the first to announce something.
They just didn't get a rat's ass about the feelings
of the families involved, and that's that's what it really
upset me. The founder of TMZ, Harvey Levin, was quick
(15:17):
to clap back at both the sheriff and others who
criticized his coverage and being the first to report the
death of Kobe Bryant. He tells the hosts of the
TV show the real exactly what happened that morning. We
got a tip that this had happened, and then we
were on the phone with with various people, uh from
(15:39):
Kobe's camp for an hour before we posted the story.
So you know, all I can say is this that
you know, when somebody of that magnitude dies so tragically,
this becomes a worldwide, massive story. And when you look
(16:00):
at the way these things come down, I mean, when
you think about it, um, when there's a plane crash, um,
when you think about it, the media immediately says, you know,
flight so and so going from Los Angeles to New York.
You know, and and they're basically telling three families knowing
(16:20):
that their relatives were on the plane because it's a
news event, and they're not waiting for you know, the
sheriff or whoever to come out with all of you know,
the notifications or whatever, because they reported because it's a
news event. Autopsies released by the l A County Medical
(16:42):
Examiner would show the pilot, RS A. Byan, had no
drugs or alcohol in his system. Reports would also show
that Kobe Bryant took a prescription medication commonly given to
those who suffer from a d h D, and his
daughter Gianna used an inhaler most typically used for asthma patients. Sadly,
the reports would also outlined just how brutal the impact was.
(17:02):
The cause of death for all nine on board was
blunt force trauma coming up the circumstances of the crash
caused a flurry of lawsuits as the death and life
of Kobe Bryant continues. On the morning of January, nine
(17:32):
people died in that helicopter crash, but most everyone only
focused on one person, Kobe Bryant, and as soon as
it was confirmed his daughter Gianna was also on board,
the attention shifted to father and daughter, but friends and
family of the other seven were equally saddened with their loss.
Among those who were on that flight the Alta Bellies John,
his wife Carrie, and their daughter, Alyssa. Alyssa was a
(17:54):
member of the Mambas and Gianna's teammate. John was best
known as the baseball coach at Orange Coast College and
host of Masa, California, and was entering his twenty eight
year as the head coach. John played one season in
the minors before getting into coaching. Seated nearby were Sarah
and Peyton Chester. Peyton was also Gianna's teammate and had
hoped to play ball in high school. In college, her mother, Sarah,
(18:15):
was involved in education. She was a member of the
board of trustees for the St. Margaret Private School and
had been a star soccer player. She had also worked
at the Tustin Memorial Academy before leaving to spend more
time with her family. Christina Mauser was the assistant coach
of the Mamba's. Her daughter Penny, played for the lower
division of the Mamba's and was supposed to be on
the flight that morning. Coincidentally, Mauser's husband, Matt, composed music
(18:38):
for Kobe's podcast The Punies. He has since started the
Christina Mauser Foundation, which supports single mothers, women and girls
in sports through scholarships in financial aid. Pilot are Zabayan
was a certified flight instructor and in one became a
private pilot you know seven. He received his commercial pilots
license and had been flying for Kobe Bryant for about
(18:59):
two years. Zabaian had more than two hundred hours of
flight time and was known as Big Z. A byproduct
of the accident would be lawsuits, and there were plenty
of them. Bryant's wife, Vanessa, filed a lawsuit against the
helicopter company and the pilot's estate for wrongful death. The
other families would soon follow. After the pilot's family received
(19:20):
a copy of the lawsuits, relatives responded by saying the
passengers aboard that flight knew the risks when they boarded
that morning, and those same passengers could have played a
role in the crash. This also led to the estate
of the pilot to file a lawsuit against two of
the air traffic controllers, claiming they had a role in
the demise of the flight. One of the more interesting
(19:47):
lawsuits was also filed by Vanessa Bryant against the Los
Angeles County Sheriff's Department. Ali count of Sheriff's deputies who
responded to the crash site or accused of taking graphic
photos and then sharing the trainey deputy at the Laws
Hills station and was allegedly flashing gruesome accident photos at
a bar. That trainee and seven other deputies were immediately
(20:07):
ordered to delete the picture of Alex Vienueva is apologizing
says he has ordered an internal investigation. Sheriff Alex vien
Aueva said he was blindsided by the actions of his deputies.
Punched to the gut, you know, it's it was such
a hard scene. Dealing with the family's firsthand and reassuring
them we're doing everything possible, and then to find out,
(20:28):
you know, days later that this happened. It's just a
sense of betrayal. I asked the sheriff about the status
of the lawsuit because it was pending litigation on the matter.
You know, I can't comment on it, but once the
litigation is over, I'll be more unhappy to answer those questions.
We did take appropriate, uh administrative action based on the
investigation we did, and we'll leave it that. But as
(20:50):
a product of this entire incident, we saw a need.
Our policy didn't really cover something like this. Our policies
on the department were design and for when we have
a celebrity and custody like a mel Gibson, Paris Hilton,
and that's what our policy was really air tight about.
But an accident on public lands that's not a criminal matter.
(21:12):
We didn't really have something to cover that. So as
a result of that, there are some shortcomings and limitations
and law. So I sponsored assembly built and it was
signed in the law by the governor last year, I
believe in October. And this law makes it a misdemeanor
crime to take photos or disseminate photos from an accident
(21:34):
scene of the deceased unless it has a lawful purpose
and that really gave us two things. One, it's a
it turns factor. So because you know throughout history, law enforcement,
fire people they have what they called death books, you know,
homicide investor. They take their their work home with them
(21:54):
and uh, what we're not we want to do is
discourage that practice. And now with the digital age, it's
more complicated. So with this law, then we want we're
going to discourage that. We penalize people who engage in
the act too, but we can also seize things which
we couldn't see before because now we have a crime
that we can write a search warrant on and be
(22:15):
able to seize things, and that's a very important So
these are two huge steps forward for public safety here
in California. The taking of pictures at that crash site
would also force the demotion of a captain with the
Los Angeles County Fire Department. That captain is suing the
county for retaliation and civil rights violations coming up in
episode four. I don't think any of us could have
(22:39):
imagined this. A city says goodbye to one of its
own and still to come. People around the world pay
their respects in very unique ways. The death and life
of Kobe Bryant is a production of KFI news at
i Heeart Media, Los Angeles for the I Heart podcast network.
The Los Angeles County Sheriff has already had a couple
of briefings with the media, and the medical examiner has
given his overview of how the remains of those on
board are being handled by Now, a go team of
eighteen specialists and investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board
has arrived at the crash site and will take over
(00:28):
the scene and the investigation. Our mission is not to
just determine what happened, but why it happened and how
it happened to prevent a similar accident from ever happening again.
I'm Steve Gregory in Los Angeles and this is the
death and life of Kobe Bryant. It's January day after
(00:50):
the crash of the Sikorski s B. MTSB Board member
Jennifer Hammondy is head of the team and briefs the media.
We established parties to the investor gation, the Federal Aviation Administration, Skorski,
Pratt and Whitney, Canada Island Express, and the National Air
Traffic Controllers Association. We also established investigative groups Operations and
(01:14):
Human Performance, air Traffic Control, airworthiness power Plants. We also
have a weather investigator. Our investigators began documenting the scene,
collecting evidence, taking pictures, and we had drones uh in
the air to begin mapping the wreckage. There have been
(01:37):
a lot of questions about the FBI and why the
FBI is here. The NTSB has a memorandum of understanding
with the FBI to help us collect evidence. They are
essentially a force multiplier for the NTSB. There's no criminal
portion of this investigation. This is our first full day.
(02:01):
We're continuing to gather information. I do have some factual
information on the flight path. Initial information shows that the
helicopter was flying under visual flight Rules or VFR, from
John Wayne Airport to just southeast of Burbank Airport. Around Burbank,
(02:23):
the pilot requested to transit controlled airspace under special visual
flight Rules. Special VFR is an air traffic control authorization
that allows an aircraft to proceed through controlled airspace at
less than the basic VFR minimums of a thousand foot
(02:45):
ceiling and three miles visibility. A TC advised the pilot
there was a delay due to traffic. While awaiting approval,
the helicopter circled for twelve minutes until the special vFire
was proved by air traffic control. The helicopter transited the
Burbank and Van Nuys airspace at four dred feet and
(03:10):
proceeded south then west. The pilot requested flight following to
continue to Camario, but Southern California tray con advised the
pilot that they were too low for flight following. Approximately
four minutes later, the pilot advised they were climbing to
(03:30):
avoid a cloud layer. When a TC asked what the
pilot planned to do, there was no reply. Radar data
indicates the helicopter climbed to feet and then began a
left descending turn. Last radar contact was around am and
is consistent with the accident location. I do anticipate we
(03:55):
will be here about five days unseen to collect perishable evidence.
We're going to continue to document the scene. We are
not here to determine the cause of the accident. We
will not determine that on scene. She answers questions from
the media. The question is should the pilot have been
(04:16):
flying in that in the fog uh at that time.
I mean, that's part of our investigation. We look at
weather and we'll have to determine that at some point.
The question is to describe the wreckage scene and whether
I had been to the recage uh to the scene.
I did go to the scene for several hours. There
(04:38):
is a impact area on one of the hills, and
the piece of the tail is down the hill on
the left side of the hill. The fuselage is over
on the other side of of that hill, and then
the main rotor is about a hundred yards beyond that.
(05:03):
It looks about The debris field is about five hundreds
of six hundred. The question is was did we recover
a black box? There wasn't a black box, and there
isn't requirement to have a black box on this question
is was there any chance for survival? That's part of
the investigation. I mean, it was a pretty devastating accident scene.
(05:27):
The question is how how confident are we that will
find a definitive cause we do this all the time.
Bryant's wife, Vanessa, had requested a temporary flight restriction or
t f R from the f a A, which closed
off the air space in a five mile radius with
(05:49):
an altitude of five thousand feet. Bryant said she did
this to protect the privacy of those on board. Tuesday, January,
the NTSB has spent a full day a gathering evidence
from the crash site and gives a status report. I
wanted to give you an update of what we accomplished today.
I spent most of the day on the accident site.
(06:10):
A lot of our investigators were on scene continuing to
examine and document the wreckage. We also looked for the
significant components like actuators and gearboxes to make sure that
they all arrived with the helicopter on scene, and we
were able to verify that. We also mentioned yesterday that
(06:34):
the pilot had an iPad with four flight on it,
so we were looking for electronic devices as we always do.
We were able to recover an iPad and a cell phone.
We do not know if that's the pilots iPad, so
we're going to take those personal electronic devices. We're going
(06:55):
to send them back to our lab at headquarters for
further analysis. Us We also located maintenance records in the wreckage.
We are not we can't discuss we're not going to
discuss the maintenance records because we haven't looked at those.
We found them, we documented them, that will become that
(07:17):
will come later. We found the airworthiness certificate, the registration,
the company's operating manual weight and balance sheets and everything
we would expect would be on the aircraft. We also
worked with drones today to help the airworthiness group locate
(07:42):
those significant components and continue to document the scene. And
then we duplicated part of the flight path, so we
flew part of the the end part of the flight
path with our drones using using a d s B data.
(08:03):
Recovery operations occurred on scene today. A recovery crew was
loading the wreckage in large white tarp bags which were
airlifted by helicopter from the scene and loaded on a
truck and will be moved to a secure location. The
(08:25):
UH that has already occurred. UH so the that is
on the truck and ready to go. So we have
turned the site officially over to local authorities. We are
done on on the site. Some of our accident investigators
began interviews today. We interview we're working on interviews with
(08:49):
air traffic Control, and we had interviews with the operator.
I don't have any information to share with you at
this time about those interviews because those interviews are ongoing
and we haven't been able to connect. They are working
on setting up other interviews for the next several days
at three PM, I held a family briefing by a
(09:12):
conference call. We do that with every accident investigation. Either
we hold a family briefing to update them on the investigation,
make sure they're aware of information before we provide it publicly,
and UM go through the process, the NTSPS investigative process,
and what they can expect over the next several weeks
(09:35):
and months. I'm not going to discuss the family briefing.
You're going to get asked if I get questions about
who was on the call, what was discussed, I'm not
going to answer that. Out of respect for the families,
I am going to provide you some information for some
questions that were asked yesterday and the day before and
(09:57):
over the past couple hours. With respect to the pilot,
I mentioned that on the second class medical certificate, which
was dated July, the pilot had two hundred hours of
flight time. Obviously that was July, so the pilot has
more flight time because it's been some time since then.
(10:18):
Out of that, the pilot had twelve hundred and fifty
hours of flight time on the S seventy helicopter, so
fifty hours on the helicopters, so that's a good amount
of experience. He's also been with a company for ten years.
(10:38):
We do know that the day before the accident, he
flew from John Wayne Airport Airport to Camaro and uh
the weather was clear. It was a different flight path,
more direct, and occurred about an hour later than the
one on Sunday. I was asked about the descent rate
(10:59):
of the helicopter. We know that the helicopter was at
when it lost communications with air traffic control. The descent
rate for the helicopter was over two thousand ft a minute,
so we know that this was a high energy impact
(11:21):
crash as the and the helicopter was in a descending
left bank. So with that, I want to stay. This
is the last press conference that we're going to have.
Los Angeles County Sheriff alex Bia Nueva also provides an
update for the media, but moments before he's about to speak,
he gets an update the ele Count of Corners office
releasing the identities of four of the victims who perish
(11:45):
in this crash, and those are as follows John Alta, Belly,
Sarah Chester, Era Zobayan, the pilot, and Kobe Bryant. They
have finished our identification, the next of can have been notified.
In all four circumstances, the Corners had removed all remains.
(12:09):
They're going through the identification process to conclude with the
other five victims of the accident. The emergency ordinance remains
in effect, so it's a misdemeanor crime to access the
crash site, and just for your own safety and common sense,
it's a hazmat site, so it needs to be clean up.
It will take probably five to seven days and finish it.
They have to remove everything by hand because they can't
(12:31):
access it with heavy vehicles. Within the next few days,
the l A County Medical Examiner's Office would release the
names of the remaining five people who died on that flight.
Forty six year old carry Out to Belly, thirty eight
year old Christina Mauser, fourteen year old Alyssa Altera Belly,
thirteen year old Peyton Chester, and thirteen year old Gianna Bryant.
(12:58):
Coming up the Ely County versus TMZ and we learn
more about the others who died in the accident. As
the death and life of Kobe Bryant continues for some
(13:30):
the official release of the names of those who died
comes a little late between the helicopters manifest friends and
family of the victims, The names of those on board
the flight had already been released through media reports. The
official naming of the victims becomes a source spot for
l A County Sheriff alex Fia Noueva. At the first
press briefing following the crash, he specifically addresses the naming
(13:52):
of the victims. We have a manifest that indications that
there was nine people on board the aircraft, the pilot
plus eight individual Uh. There is white speculation is whose
identities are. However, it is being entirely inappropriate right now
to identify anyone by name until the corner has made
the identification through their very deliberative prophets, and they've made
(14:15):
made notifications and next of kin, and it would be
extremely disrespectful to understand that your loved one of those
parents that you learn about it from TMZ. That is
just wholly inappropriate. So we're not going to be going there.
I had a chance to ask the sheriff why he
called out TMZ by name. I got that from Vanessa herself.
(14:35):
She told me that she found out from TMZ that
her husband was on the flight, and I thought that
is the most horrible thing possible that you could learn
the definitely a loved one through radio or TV. It's like, wow,
that's that's I thought that was just wildly inappropriate. I
think that's the very words I used. It's just inappropriate.
(14:56):
I think the families need to know from the authority,
be it myself, be at the corner's office or fire department.
Once as confirmed, okay, then report what you ever want to,
but that need to be the first to announce something.
They just didn't get a rat's ass about the feelings
of the families involved, and that's that's what it really
upset me. The founder of TMZ, Harvey Levin, was quick
(15:17):
to clap back at both the sheriff and others who
criticized his coverage and being the first to report the
death of Kobe Bryant. He tells the hosts of the
TV show the real exactly what happened that morning. We
got a tip that this had happened, and then we
were on the phone with with various people, uh from
(15:39):
Kobe's camp for an hour before we posted the story.
So you know, all I can say is this that
you know, when somebody of that magnitude dies so tragically,
this becomes a worldwide, massive story. And when you look
(16:00):
at the way these things come down, I mean, when
you think about it, um, when there's a plane crash, um,
when you think about it, the media immediately says, you know,
flight so and so going from Los Angeles to New York.
You know, and and they're basically telling three families knowing
(16:20):
that their relatives were on the plane because it's a
news event, and they're not waiting for you know, the
sheriff or whoever to come out with all of you know,
the notifications or whatever, because they reported because it's a
news event. Autopsies released by the l A County Medical
(16:42):
Examiner would show the pilot, RS A. Byan, had no
drugs or alcohol in his system. Reports would also show
that Kobe Bryant took a prescription medication commonly given to
those who suffer from a d h D, and his
daughter Gianna used an inhaler most typically used for asthma patients. Sadly,
the reports would also outlined just how brutal the impact was.
(17:02):
The cause of death for all nine on board was
blunt force trauma coming up the circumstances of the crash
caused a flurry of lawsuits as the death and life
of Kobe Bryant continues. On the morning of January, nine
(17:32):
people died in that helicopter crash, but most everyone only
focused on one person, Kobe Bryant, and as soon as
it was confirmed his daughter Gianna was also on board,
the attention shifted to father and daughter, but friends and
family of the other seven were equally saddened with their loss.
Among those who were on that flight the Alta Bellies John,
his wife Carrie, and their daughter, Alyssa. Alyssa was a
(17:54):
member of the Mambas and Gianna's teammate. John was best
known as the baseball coach at Orange Coast College and
host of Masa, California, and was entering his twenty eight
year as the head coach. John played one season in
the minors before getting into coaching. Seated nearby were Sarah
and Peyton Chester. Peyton was also Gianna's teammate and had
hoped to play ball in high school. In college, her mother, Sarah,
(18:15):
was involved in education. She was a member of the
board of trustees for the St. Margaret Private School and
had been a star soccer player. She had also worked
at the Tustin Memorial Academy before leaving to spend more
time with her family. Christina Mauser was the assistant coach
of the Mamba's. Her daughter Penny, played for the lower
division of the Mamba's and was supposed to be on
the flight that morning. Coincidentally, Mauser's husband, Matt, composed music
(18:38):
for Kobe's podcast The Punies. He has since started the
Christina Mauser Foundation, which supports single mothers, women and girls
in sports through scholarships in financial aid. Pilot are Zabayan
was a certified flight instructor and in one became a
private pilot you know seven. He received his commercial pilots
license and had been flying for Kobe Bryant for about
(18:59):
two years. Zabaian had more than two hundred hours of
flight time and was known as Big Z. A byproduct
of the accident would be lawsuits, and there were plenty
of them. Bryant's wife, Vanessa, filed a lawsuit against the
helicopter company and the pilot's estate for wrongful death. The
other families would soon follow. After the pilot's family received
(19:20):
a copy of the lawsuits, relatives responded by saying the
passengers aboard that flight knew the risks when they boarded
that morning, and those same passengers could have played a
role in the crash. This also led to the estate
of the pilot to file a lawsuit against two of
the air traffic controllers, claiming they had a role in
the demise of the flight. One of the more interesting
(19:47):
lawsuits was also filed by Vanessa Bryant against the Los
Angeles County Sheriff's Department. Ali count of Sheriff's deputies who
responded to the crash site or accused of taking graphic
photos and then sharing the trainey deputy at the Laws
Hills station and was allegedly flashing gruesome accident photos at
a bar. That trainee and seven other deputies were immediately
(20:07):
ordered to delete the picture of Alex Vienueva is apologizing
says he has ordered an internal investigation. Sheriff Alex vien
Aueva said he was blindsided by the actions of his deputies.
Punched to the gut, you know, it's it was such
a hard scene. Dealing with the family's firsthand and reassuring
them we're doing everything possible, and then to find out,
(20:28):
you know, days later that this happened. It's just a
sense of betrayal. I asked the sheriff about the status
of the lawsuit because it was pending litigation on the matter.
You know, I can't comment on it, but once the
litigation is over, I'll be more unhappy to answer those questions.
We did take appropriate, uh administrative action based on the
investigation we did, and we'll leave it that. But as
(20:50):
a product of this entire incident, we saw a need.
Our policy didn't really cover something like this. Our policies
on the department were design and for when we have
a celebrity and custody like a mel Gibson, Paris Hilton,
and that's what our policy was really air tight about.
But an accident on public lands that's not a criminal matter.
(21:12):
We didn't really have something to cover that. So as
a result of that, there are some shortcomings and limitations
and law. So I sponsored assembly built and it was
signed in the law by the governor last year, I
believe in October. And this law makes it a misdemeanor
crime to take photos or disseminate photos from an accident
(21:34):
scene of the deceased unless it has a lawful purpose
and that really gave us two things. One, it's a
it turns factor. So because you know throughout history, law enforcement,
fire people they have what they called death books, you know,
homicide investor. They take their their work home with them
(21:54):
and uh, what we're not we want to do is
discourage that practice. And now with the digital age, it's
more complicated. So with this law, then we want we're
going to discourage that. We penalize people who engage in
the act too, but we can also seize things which
we couldn't see before because now we have a crime
that we can write a search warrant on and be
(22:15):
able to seize things, and that's a very important So
these are two huge steps forward for public safety here
in California. The taking of pictures at that crash site
would also force the demotion of a captain with the
Los Angeles County Fire Department. That captain is suing the
county for retaliation and civil rights violations coming up in
episode four. I don't think any of us could have
(22:39):
imagined this. A city says goodbye to one of its
own and still to come. People around the world pay
their respects in very unique ways. The death and life
of Kobe Bryant is a production of KFI news at
i Heeart Media, Los Angeles for the I Heart podcast network.
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