With no black box recorder aboard the helicopter that crashed last month in Calabasas, killing Kobe Bryant and eight others, investigators with the National Transportation Safety Board are turning to the travelers’ personal electronics for potential answers.
Investigators hope the passengers’ cellphones and the pilot’s iPad can help them better understand the chaotic last moments of the flight before the chopper slammed into a Calabasas hillside in foggy conditions.
Experts have said the helicopter was flying low enough that the activities of the electronics were likely captured by cellphone towers.
Ara Zobayan, the pilot of the Sikorsky S-76B, made his last communication with air traffic control as he climbed to 2,300 feet heading toward Camarillo in heavy clouds on Jan. 26. Investigators are seeking to reconstruct what led him to suddenly bank left and descend rapidly just before the crash.
Read the full story at LATimes.com.
