![]() “Once you leave Van Nuys, there’s no weather reporting until you get to Camarillo,” says Deetz. To learn about local conditions, pilots rely on weather reports called METARs that come from a network of airport observation sites, but there are none in the area where the helicopter crashed. The weather can vary widely throughout the L.A. A controller at nearby Van Nuys Airport to the west, whose airspace the helicopter subsequently passed through, advised Zobayan that there was a cloud ceiling in the area of 1,100 feet and visibility of 2.5 miles. However, Zobayan was allowed to proceed under special visual flight rules, a not uncommon permission for helicopters, which can fly lower than airplanes to stay under cloud cover, if the pilot believes they can see well enough to get through an area of lower visibility safely. Flying north over Los Angeles, visibility deteriorated, and the helicopter was held up briefly outside the airspace of Burbank Airport, where air traffic controllers were requiring airplanes to make instrument landings and takeoffs. The helicopter was carrying the retired NBA player, his 13-year-old daughter Gianna and six others to a basketball tournament at Bryant’s sports academy in Thousand Oaks. On Sunday morning at 9:06 a.m., Zobayan took off from Orange County’s John Wayne Airport, near Bryant’s home, under overcast skies with visibility of four miles that met VFR minimums. ![]() “If you don’t do it a lot, it’s not easy.” An instrument flight instructor as well, he reportedly flew Bryant regularly and Deetz says he knew the area well.Īn Island Express representative reached by phone declined to answer questions.Īll pilots learn how to stabilize an aircraft using their instruments in conditions of low visibility, and instrument-rated pilots are required to log at least a handful of instrument approaches and other procedures every six months to keep their rating, or take a proficiency check.īut flying a helicopter by instruments is a perishable skill, says Deetz. Zobayan, 50, was the chief pilot for Island Express, where he had worked for ten years, according to a statement on the company’s website, and had 8,200 hours of flight time as of July. “You can spend all this money and maybe get three flights a year that you do IFR,” says Deetz, 54, who has flown helicopters in the L.A. It’s financially demanding and time-consuming for a company to ensure it and its pilots can operate under instrument flight rules, or IFR, says Deetz, and in the Los Angeles area, with its usually balmy weather, he says it isn’t worth it for most helicopter operators, apart from emergency medical services.
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