Focus on crash-warning system after Bryant’s death
TAWS not mandated for all choppers
LOS ANGELES — The crash that killed nine people, including Kobe Bryant, has led to calls for crash-warning systems to be installed in more helicopters, but regulators and pilots worry that the instrument can trigger too many alarms and prove distracting.
“Another warning system screaming at you isn’t going to help,” said Brian Alexander, a helicopter pilot and aviation lawyer.
The death of the basketball star on Sunday has highlighted the debate over the merits of the Terrain Awareness and Warning System, or TAWS, which would have sounded a voice alarm if the aircraft was in danger of hitting the ground or some object.
It is required in medical helicopters, but not in commercial ones like the one used by Bryant.
National Transportation Safety
Board officials say it is too early to tell whether a TAWS on Bryant’s Sikorsky helicopter could have prevented the crash. But they think it should have been installed on the aircraft and criticized federal regulators for not carrying out the NTSB’s recommendation over a decade ago to mandate such equipment on helicopters with six or more passenger seats.
While some pilots believe TAWS is unnecessary and refer to its warnings as “nuisance alarms,” Peter Goelz, a former managing director of the NTSB, said there is “no reasonable excuse” for the system not to be installed on all choppers.
“From a safety perspective, you want all the … enhancements that are available,” he said. “The trade-off is worth it.”
The NTSB recommended that the Federal Aviation Administration require the system after a Sikorsky S-76A carrying workers to an offshore drilling ship crashed in the Gulf of Mexico near Galveston, Texas, killing all 10 people aboard in 2004. Ten years later, the FAA mandated such systems on air ambulances only.
FAA officials had questioned the value of such technology on helicopters, which tend to fly close to buildings and the ground, as it could trigger too many alarms.
The pilot in Sunday’s crash, Ara Zobayan, had been climbing out of the clouds when the chartered aircraft went into a sudden 1,200-foot descent that lasted nearly a minute, investigators said Tuesday. It slammed into a fog-shrouded hillside, scattering debris more than 500 feet.
Bill English, investigator in charge of the NTSB’s Major Investigations Division, said it was not yet clear whether “TAWS and this scenario are related to each other.”
Mike Sagely, a former military pilot with 35 years of experience who uses TAWS in his current work in the Los Angeles area, described it as helpful, but not something to rely on too heavily.