kobe body found holding gigi after crash

Would there ever come a day when scientists could bend the concept of time like a skilled magician with a spoon? Could these grieving families go back in time and stop their loved ones from getting on that helicopter? Could they part the unusual thick clouds that hung low over that Southern California morning so those teenage girls could make it safely to just another humdrum basketball game they would never even remember had they made it to adulthood? Watching the cars snake along the 101 below, I thought of the scientists who had raced to find a vaccine for COVID-19 in under a year, which is nothing short of a miracle. I sat and watched the sunset and wondered what the last moments were like for those on board, whether they were scared or if they had any idea what was coming. But whatever happened was so catastrophic it seemed to make the helicopter U-turn directly into its demise. The NTSB will release its report on the cause of the crash in the coming months. The downslope of the hill faces the airport where the helicopter was due to land. If the crash was unfathomable before, it became even more so after sitting where the wreckage came to rest. As I got to a clearing, I could see the 101 freeway down in front of me.Ī makeshift memorial was found at the crash site. The trail zigzagged into switchbacks to make the climb more manageable. The route is favored by mountain bikers, and I passed one coming down the hill on my way to the site. From there the hike would take another half hour. If I took the Bark Park trail it would hit the New Millennium Loop Trail about a mile up.

I parked at a dog park across from the middle school and found a trailhead. Aerial footage of the wreckage showed what looked like a hiking trail just steps away. I found the latitude and longitude coordinates of the accident site on Wikipedia and plugged them into Google Maps. By the time I made my journey up the hill behind the water company off Las Virgenes Road, every piece of the downed white helicopter with robin-egg blue and navy piping from the top of the nose to the tip of the tail was long gone. Any time there is an aviation accident, the NTSB retrieves every fragment of debris in an attempt to piece together what went wrong. Police and National Transportation Safety Board investigators cordoned off the area in the days and weeks after the crash to deter scavengers and lookie-loos. By making the 45-minute hike up the hillside, I hoped to gain some clarity about what happened on the morning of Jan. I set out to find what had become of the site where the helicopter crashed. A few weeks ago, I returned to Calabasas to find answers. In the weeks and months after the Bryants’ deaths, it was difficult to travel three blocks without encountering a mural of Kobe or Gianna or both. Grief in western society is so often shoved into attics and dresser drawers. The entire city felt like a living memorial.

When the red light flickered off, she burst into tears. A national sports reporter stood near the front door, faced her network’s camera and offered her thoughts on the death of a player she had covered for more than a decade. Then around 2 p.m., authorities announced the briefing had been moved to the Malibu/Lost Hills Sheriff Station just up the road. Word began to spread among the media that the Los Angeles County Sherriff’s Department would hold a press conference at the middle school. A group of first responders were visible from the aerial footage taken by the helicopters, but none of them seemed to move with any haste. A news report confirmed that Kobe and Gigi Bryant were among those killed in the crash. Most just wandered from being so stunned. Police blocked off a hiking trail that led up the hill.ĭozens of Lakers fans in purple and gold jerseys and Kobe T-shirts gathered in the parking lot of AE Wright Middle School across from the water plant. Flames shot up a dusty hill that looked to be a mile or so above a water utility building. Within minutes of TMZ’s report, news media and fans descended on Calabasas to get as close as they could to the fiery wreck.

Kobe body found holding gigi after crash