Calabasas Marks Year Anniversary Of Kobe Bryant Crash

CALABASAS, CA — An De Vooght of Topanga remembers her husband telling her it was too foggy to bike the morning of Sunday, Jan. 26, 2020. She said it was the first time in 18 years he had warned her against completing her regular trek along Mullholland near Las Virgenes Road.

As soon as she got onto the windy, invisible roads, De Vooght regretted her decision. She turned on her light at 9 in the morning, hoping it would help her visibility. It did not. She turned on her phone to check the weather, and saw that there had been a crash nearby. As events slowly rolled in, she, along with the rest of the country and the world, learned that it had been a helicopter crash that killed Lakers star Kobe Bryant, his 13-year-old daughter Gianna, and the seven other passengers aboard.

"As I came closer to the site, streets were blocked off, TV reporters on every corner of the street, people wearing Kobe Jerseys," De Vooght shared with Patch. "Before knowing the details of what transpired, I was always convinced that weather (dense fog with zero visibility) must have been the main reason for the crash, especially considering my personal experience riding that day. I still do this ride many times and have called it consistently 'Reliving sadness.'”

Tuesday marks the one-year anniversary of the crash, when the helicopter carrying the 41-year-old Bryant and his daughter, along with two of her teenage basketball teammates and four additional adults, slammed into a hillside that fateful Sunday as they were en route to the retired NBA star's Mamba Sports Academy. There were no survivors.

In addition to the Bryants, those who died in the crash were:

— John Altobelli, 56, a longtime coach of the Orange Coast College baseball team, along with his wife, Keri, 46, and their 13-year-old daughter Alyssa, who was a teammate of Gianna's on Bryant's Mamba Sports Academy youth basketball team;
— Sarah Chester, 45, and her 13-year-old daughter Payton, who also played with Gianna and Alyssa;
— Christina Mauser, 38, one of Bryant's assistant coaches on the Mamba Academy team; and
— Ara Zobayan, 50, the helicopter pilot.

Calabasas Councilmember Alicia Weintraub, who was at the time beginning her term as mayor, also remembers hearing reports from police and fire departments that eventually confirmed that Bryant and his daughter were aboard the helicopter that crashed in her city. As an international media circus and hundreds of visitors descended onto Calabasas, Weintraub felt it was her role to protect the dignity of the family, and help nearby residents re-enter their homes as soon as possible.

"I live right across from the crash site and remember leaving my home that Sunday morning around 9 am to see the complete solid fog hanging in front of the mountain," Calabasas resident Janet Moltke said. "In the 23 years I have lived here I don’t remember ever seeing it that densely fogged. Within an hour of leaving my home, I got the notification on PulsePoint about the crash."

The city closed the area around De Anza Park, so that visitors could not make the trek to the crash site in the mountains, not far from The Oaks. To this day, there is no memorial at the site, and Weintraub says the city is afraid that a memorial, especially with candles, might spark a fire in the brushy area. Instead, nine rosebushes have been planted at De Anza Park in honor of the nine victims. Flags were lowered at City Hall, which was also illuminated purple and gold in honor of the Lakers.

Weintraub said no other memorials have been planned at the site "out of respect for the families."

"If it's something that they wanted in the community, we believe they would have reached out to us, but in due time, if the families reach out to us, we will do whatever they want in our community," she said.

Still, Weintraub said there will be some sort of tribute at the City Council meeting on Wednesday.

"The community would have been sad for nine people to die in a crash no matter who it was, but when you learn their stories and identities, it hits home even more," she said.

"Living fairly close to the crash site, I remember watching the area teeming with activity as law enforcement officials combed the area for investigative purposes while people in cars and on foot converged on the location," Calabasas James Bozajian told Patch. "I also recall the universal sense of sadness as the nation riveted its attention to the tragedy. I remember the makeshift memorials in a nearby park placed by mourners."

The city has also announced that Bark Park will be closed Tuesday to avoid crowds gathering to hike to the site of the crash.

The National Transportation Safety Board has scheduled a Feb. 9 meeting to announce the results of its investigation into the cause of the crash.

Documents made public last year by the NTSB lent credence to the growing theory the pilot may have become disoriented while navigating through the fog while ferrying the passengers from Orange County to Camarillo. They were going to the former Laker's Mamba Sports Academy in Thousand Oaks for a youth basketball game, with Bryant scheduled to coach his daughter's team.

According to documents made public last summer, Zobayan's last communication with air-traffic controllers before the crash indicated that he was climbing to 4,000 feet to get above the cloud cover. However, flight data from the NTSB indicated the Sikorsky S-76B helicopter was actually descending at the time while banking to the left, ultimately slamming into the ground a rate of about 4,000 feet per minute.

According to one of the documents, just before the crash, flight data showed the helicopter had "reached its maximum altitude and began descending. During the final descent the pilot, responding to ATC (air traffic control), stated that they were "climbing to 4,000."

That was Zobayan's final transmission.

Documents released thus far have not reached any conclusions as to the actual cause of the crash, which has sparked an array of lawsuits filed by relatives of the crash victims, including Bryant's widow.

— Michael Wittner and City News Service contributed to this report.

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