NTSB: Bryant’s Pilot Disregarded Training

Celebrity allure met aviation safety culture and the pilot threw his training out the window. So concluded the NTSB today in issuing its long-awaited probable cause finding in the January 26, 2020 crash of a Sikorsky S-76B that killed retired basketball legend Kobe Bryant and eight others near Calabasas, California.

The NTSB found that pilot Ara Zobayan conducted the flight significantly counter to his training likely in an effort to please his celebrity passenger and deliver him to his final destination, even as weather progressively deteriorated during the Part 135 VFR flight. Zobayan, an 8,500-hour IFR-rated pilot, had logged just 75 hours of instrument time and all but 68 hours of that was simulated, the NTSB found. And although the S-76 was equipped with an autopilot, Zobayan did not use it as he attempted to climb through a cloud layer as terrain and ceiling began to converge.

The NTSB concluded that “the probable cause of this accident was the pilot’s decision to continue flight under visual flight rules into instrument meteorological conditions (IMC), which resulted in the pilot’s spatial orientation and loss of control. Contributing to the accident was the pilot’s likely self-induced pressure and the pilot’s plan continuation bias which adversely affected the pilot’s decision-making, and Island Express Helicopter Inc.’s inadequate review and oversight of the safety management processes.”