On Monday, February 24th, Vanessa Bryant, the wife of Kobe Bryant and mother to Gianna, sued the helicopter company that owns the aircraft that crashed in Calabasas, California. She filed a wrongful death lawsuit against them.
The accident that claimed the life of Kobe, Gianna, and seven others occurred on Sunday, January 26th, at about 9:45 a.m. The helicopter the group was traveling in crashed into a canyon on their way to a basketball game at Thousand Oaks, California.
The pilot, Ara Zobayan, was flying under adverse weather conditions. The lawsuit stated that Island Express, the helicopter company, is liable for every action taken by the deceased pilot, including what got described as his negligent and careless piloting.
The lawsuit also stated that the company was aware that it was unsafe to fly that day, but went ahead to authorize and permit the flight. It also faults Zobayan for failing to monitor and assess the weather before take-off accurately.
The pilot also got faulted for failing to abort the fight when he discovered that the weather was very cloudy. Investigations into the crash are still going, and the National Transportation Safety Board heads it.
Based on the reports that have been released so far, the clouds were low that morning, and the weather was extremely foggy. The ill-fated helicopter disappeared in the clouds and reappeared when it started to descend rapidly before crashing.
The NTSB has not released the cause of the crash and will take a while to piece together the events of that day. Island Express has not responded to Vanessa’s lawsuit at the time of this report.
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