Autopsy reveals no substances in pilot

LOS ANGELES — The pilot flying Kobe Bryant and seven others to a youth basketball tournament did not have alcohol or drugs in his system, and all nine sustained immediately fatal injuries when their helicopter slammed into a hillside outside Los Angeles in January, according to autopsies released Friday.

The reports by the Los Angeles County coroner’s office provide a clinical but unvarnished look at the brutality of the crash.

One of the most popular sports figures in Los Angeles and a celebrity around the globe, Bryant was broken beyond recognition when his body was found outside the wreckage of the chopper. His remains had to be identified by his fingerprints.

The report made it clear: Bryant and the passengers almost certainly were dead in an instant due to blunt trauma.

“These injuries are rapidly if not instantly fatal,” Juan Carrillo, senior deputy medical examiner, wrote in Bryant’s report.

Bryant was headed from his Orange County home to his daughter Gianna’s tournament at his Mamba Sports Academy in Thousand Oaks on the morning of Jan. 26. The group, including one of his daughter’s coaches, and two of her teammates, encountered thick fog in the San Fernando Valley north of Los Angeles.

Zobayan, an experienced pilot who often flew Bryant, climbed sharply and had nearly succeeded breaking through the clouds when the craft took an abrupt left turn and plunged into the grassy, oak studded hills below at 184 mph.