Investigators comb through wreckage of helicopter crash that killed Kobe Bryant

Investigators are still sifting through the

wreckage

of the

helicopter

crash

that

killed

Kobe Bryant, his daughter and seven other people. Authorities say the plane was flying in fog so dense that even police

helicopter

s were grounded. Kris Van Cleave has the latest on the investigation and new video appears to show the final moments of the flight, new video appears to show Kobe Bryant's helicopter circling just minutes before the

crash

that

killed

all nine on board NTSB used a helicopter today to airlift key pieces of

wreckage

from the crash site on the steep hillside while

investigators

searched for smaller pieces. elements

investigators

are scrutinizing the pilot's purchase history in Arizo and the helicopter's maintenance records preliminary flight data shows the trip began normally about 15 minutes later the pilot began circling the weather was getting worse while waiting 12 minutes for air traffic control to give him permission to continue.

It was reported around 9:40 flying under the clouds. Sabayon asked controllers to track it on radar, but it was too low. Four minutes later, he radioed that he was climbing to go above the cloud cover. He was now flying in a potentially blinding fog. He reached 2,300 feet before turning left. In its final 12 seconds, the helicopter began to descend at nearly 5,000 feet per minute, the last recorded speed being approximately 184 miles per hour. NBA star LeBron James spoke to Brian that morning in an Instagram post. James wrote that he was heartbroken and devastated and vowed to continue. Kobe's legacy Brian's former teammate, Shaquille O'Neal, also spoke about the loss of their friendship, it was that of the brothers, a great pain for all the victims, including baseball coach John Altobelli, his wife and his daughter, he had the perfect life, the perfect wife, the perfect family, it's just mind. -Amazing, that's gone and Kris Van Cleave joins me now from Calabasas, California.

Kris in your packet you mentioned that the pilot tried to avoid a cloud cover before the accident. Helicopters generally fly in these types of foggy conditions. How big? What role could the weather have played in the accident? That is the question that many people ask themselves today. Many people wonder what role the weather played and whether the pilot should have continued flying. Normally, a helicopter flies under visual and basically flight rules. That means the pilot can see where he's going and you usually know you have three miles of visibility in front of you and clouds at least a couple thousand feet away.

You didn't have that situation here and it's unusual when a helicopter flies out of instruments, which would be the other option, so there are some questions about the decision to go up into the clouds, of course, if it felt like things were getting worse. and I had no choice, do what you can do to try. so that everyone is on the ground safely, but the question here is that he went up, certainly that helicopter could have gone up above the clouds, but when he went up 2300 feet, the helicopter turns to the left and starts descending, why what happened at that moment?

The helicopter also flew over the area for about 12 minutes before being cleared to enter controlled airspace. This is one of the things that researchers are going to explore now. That happened earlier in this chain of events. They were about 15 minutes away. the flight as they approached the Burbank airport and that is the busy airspace of Southern California, I had asked to follow special flight rules where I would be operating in lower visibility and the air traffic controller said, "I need you to wait in Glendale because I have other aircraft traffic in the area and until the traffic cleared he needed to wait and then was cleared to move, the weather seemed to be getting worse at that time so I think the NTSB will certainly look to have a full understanding of the weather conditions during this flight, but it's not uncommon for planes to encounter some sort of traffic jam around a Southern California airport and that's essentially what happened here.

The question is what was the weather doing while they were waiting, since the flight was leaving. zoom out and you see those pictures of the wreckage. really horrible, so Chris, other than the weather, are you learning anything else about what investigators are looking into to determine the cause of the accident? We are so early in the investigation, everything is really on the table, they are going to look at the pilot and In his flight history, we know that we had at least 8200 flight hours. They will look at the maintenance history of this particular helicopter. They will examine the remains if they can see clearly the engines they will carry.

They will take them apart if necessary, they want to determine if something went wrong mechanically with the helicopter and basically you think about it, you put all the options on the table over time, the investigators will try to take things off the table, so we are left with the scenario that was the most likely cause here, it could be the weather, it could be a mechanical failure, it could be something else, that's why they take a very comprehensive and very slow methodical approach to resolving these things comprehensively and slowly, and? Does that mean in terms of when the public can actually get some answers?

Chris, well, normally the final NTSB report takes a year. We will receive some type of preliminary report, usually in about ten days, and that is a statement of the facts as they are known at the time. That point, but it's a long process and we may get some clues, there are certainly some big questions that have already arisen. I will, but it will be months, if not a year or more, before there is a clearance or from the NTSB on what they believe caused this accident Kris Van Cleave, thank you very much, sure