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#KobeBryant #RIPKobe

The helicopter that chauffeured Kobe Bryant from his Orange County home to the Los Angeles area departed Santa Ana-John Wayne Airport shortly after 9 a.m. on a foggy Sunday morning with nine people aboard. Its destination was the Camarillo Airport, northwest of Los Angeles, near Mr. Bryant’s sports academy. It was supposed to be the kind of routine flight that Mr. Bryant, who used his chopper like a car, had made hundreds of times in his life. But with a deep marine layer and areas of dense fog in the region, federal weather forecasters had advised the aviation community of the need for “instrument flight rules” and that typical visual flight rules probably wouldn’t apply. Air-traffic controllers in Burbank told the aircraft to maintain special visual flight rules at or below 2,500 feet, according to recordings of tower communications.
A few minutes later, the helicopter crashed in mountainous terrain near Calabasas, Calif., killing Mr. Bryant, his 13-year-old daughter Gianna and seven others. Mr. Bryant spent countless hours aboard this helicopter before his tragic death. He began exploring the possibility of getting to work by chopper around 2006, intrigued by the prospect of turning a painful, unpredictable drive into a guaranteed 15-minute trip. It wasn’t long before he was commuting in a helicopter. He beat traffic and NBA teams by air.Mr. Bryant liked the idea of lifting weights in the morning, taking his children to school, flying to Los Angeles Lakers practice and returning to his Newport Beach home in time to meet them in the carpool line. “I had to figure out a way where I could still train and focus on the craft but not compromise family time,” he once said. His chopper quickly became part of his mystique—only Kobe Bryant would take a helicopter to his office—and the game-day routine that allowed him to become one of the greatest players in the history of the game.
Mr. Bryant would drive to John Wayne Airport, draw the curtain for privacy and soar over everyone on his way to a heliport in downtown Los Angeles, said Kurt Deetz, a former Island Express Helicopters pilot who often flew him to games. For his final NBA game in 2016, Mr. Bryant’s chopper was wrapped in black and dressed with his personal logo. The helicopter’s exterior was meant to evoke the skin of a snake in a nod to the “Black Mamba,” the nickname that Mr. Bryant once gave himself. He called his ride the “Mamba Chopper.”

CALABASAS, Calif. – Former NBA superstar Kobe Bryant has died in a helicopter crash in California, Local 10 has confirmed.
Five people were on board when the helicopter went down near Calabasas this morning. Bryant’s wife Vanessa was reportedly not on the helicopter, according to TMZ. ABC News is reporting that Bryant’s four daughters were also on board the helicopter. Bryant was 41 years old.
He played his entire 20-year NBA career with the Los Angeles Lakers and finished his career as one of the best to ever play the game. Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, he was drafted into the NBA straight out of high school at the age of 17.
He retired in 2016 a five-time NBA champion, two-time NBA Finals MVP and the all-time leading scorer in Lakers franchise history. Bryant was selected to an NBA record 18 consecutive NBA All-Star Games. He also won two gold medals while representing the USA in the 2008 and 2012 Summer Olympics. As the news broke, members of the NBA family, and many others, began to show their shock and anguish