Crashwarning device might not have saved copter

LOS ANGELES — The helicopter carrying Kobe Bryant didn’t have a longrecommended warning system to alert the pilot he was too close to the ground, but it is not clear whether it would have averted the foggyweather crash, investigators and other experts say.

At issue is what’s known as a Terrain Awareness and Warning System, or TAWS, which would have sounded a cockpit alarm if the aircraft was in danger.

While the cause of the wreck that killed the former NBA superstar, his 13yearold daughter and the seven others aboard Sunday is still under investigation, the National Transportation Safety Board may again recommend that helicopters with six or more passenger seats be required to have such equipment.

The pilot in Sunday’s crash, Ara Zobayan, had been climbing out of the clouds when the chartered aircraft banked left and began a sudden and terrifying 1,200foot descent that lasted nearly a minute, investigators said Tuesday. It slammed into a fogshrouded hillside, scattering debris more than 500 feet.

“This is a pretty steep descent at high speed,” the NTSB’s Jennifer Homendy said. “We know that this was a highenergy impact crash.”

The last of the victims’ bodies were recovered Tuesday, and coroner’s officials said the remains of Bryant, Zobayan and two other passengers have been identified using fingerprints.

The NTSB recommended that the Federal Aviation Administration require TAWS after a similar helicopter, a Sikorsky S76A 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 but not other helicopters.

FAA officials had questioned the value of such technology on helicopters, which tend to fly close to buildings and the ground and could trigger too many false alarms that might distract the pilot.

“Certainly, TAWS could have helped to provide information to the pilot on what terrain the pilot was flying in,” Homendy said of the helicopter that was carrying Bryant.

At the same time, Homendy said it was too soon to say whether the pilot had control of the helicopter as it plummeted.