The death of Kobe Bryant, his daughter, and seven others, in a fiery helicopter crash, struck the nation in a way beyond what one might expect for a professional basketball player. Bill Whittle, lives in Los Angeles, says it changed his mind in a surprising way. Bill Whittle is also a pilot who has flown that route in an experimental aircraft many times. He offers his insight into what we know so far about the helicopter accident.
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4 replies on “How Kobe Changed My Mind: Lessons from His Life and Death by an L.A. Pilot”
Gentlemen, a very well done episode.
Bill – I must say my first thought was also why would a helicopter fly at high rate of speed into the hillside, when one could just hover and make a plan, even if that plan is to set down and wait on the fog to clear.
Kobe and family were/are Catholic, and Kobe had attended Mass that very morning. He took his Catholic faith seriously, and as such was a fairly rare professional basketball player beyond his incredible skills on the court. He met and married his wife at a very early age, they’ve been married a long time, and it was a good marriage, a strong marriage, and a strong family. Some articles link to an old story of Kobe once departing from his vows to his wife, but that incident was well behind them, Kobe had admitted his error in judgment and resolved to repair his relationship with his wife and family, and did so. He was devoted to his parents, his family, his profession, his future in helping youngsters, and despite several years retired from playing, was still in demand by prominent corporate sponsors. As President Trump said, although he was a highly successful basketball player, his life was really just beginning. Lots of people affected directly and millions indirectly during and now after his life, which is a testament to his character and earned success during his time on earth.
It was moving to see Bill’s take on Kobe’s death, recognizing as he did how certain well-known people’s death can genuinely affect millions of the living. We mourn for ourselves because his death scars our sense of being, of wonder, of purpose. Can we say we have achieved much of what we wish to achieve and are ready for a sudden cessation of it all? It’s a question that begs us to reflect upon our readiness to depart this earthly life for the continued life of our soul.
I don’t follow basketball or the NBA, so while I had heard the name, I didn’t know who he was until my wife explained it to me. But I do completely understand the impact of his loss to his fans.
It’s only happened to me once personally, on October 12, 1997, when singer John Denver died in a plane crash in Monterrey Bay. I never met John, but his music had inspired me greatly since I first heard him in 1973 in high school. The sudden loss of that inspiration was horrible for me in a very personal way that few who didn’t follow him understood. It impacted me hard that day. It has impacted me in other ways every single day since, since I now travel to Aspen each October to celebrate his life with other musicians, and his spirit is there every time I pick up the guitar to play a song. While I didn’t know John, I had the good fortune to later become friends with several of his band members. Lead guitarist Steve Weisberg told me that John was a real person, and though he wasn’t perfect, but he was genuine. Steve ended up being a good friend of mine before we lost him in 2014. Everything in John’s music I related closely to: themes of nature, wilderness, the Rocky Mountains, the desire to go home, the freedom in flying, the wonder of astronomy and the reflection of life and the joy of living. Those were real things that I understood instinctively, and things no other musician sang about before or since. HIs music spoke to me in a very personal way. It was as if he was singing MY songs, not his. And no matter when I saw him, be it on TV, in a movie or on stage, he always made me feel better about life when I saw him. So when he died, it was like that inspiration and joy was suddenly stripped from my world.
John’s crash was pilot error–the fact remains that no matter what else, he took off with insufficient fuel in his tanks and was unfamiliar with the Long E-Z airplane. No matter what else, he was going to come down that day. But his skill as a pilot (he was rated in many planes, including a Lear 35) should have allowed him to ditch it safely. I am sure he would have if not for the simple fact that the builder of that particular plane had positioned the fuel transfer knob behind the pilot on the left side, a nonstandard position that forced him to turn to reach the switch. The ergonomics of that movement caused him to push the control stick forward and press on the right rudder pedal while trying to adjust the fuel knob. Those control movements threw him in an unplanned, uncontrolled flight situation and killed him instantly on impact, being low at 500 feet at the time. His pilot error should have been survivable, but it was overcome by a poorly-installed fuel knob in a place it should not have been. His death hurt, even though I had never met him, because I knew him instinctively through his music and his TV specials: who he was, what he was all about. He was a guy I would have invited into my house. We had differences in politics, but when he sang he and I were exactly on the same page. He also used his celebrity well, as did Kobe, fighting world hunger, planting trees, and working on wildlife and wilderness sustainment and conservation and starting the civilian-in-space program with NASA. He gave every dime he made from the song “Calypso” to the Cousteau Society to help them. I related greatly to that kind of sincerity, and his loss was hugely impactful. So, while I don’t follow the NBA and I didn’t know who Kobe was specifically, I completely relate to how the loss of an inspirational person, who has had real impact on your thoughts emotions and life and views, is visceral on a gut emotional level to anyone who has chosen a celebrity to follow and then had that celebrity ripped from them. It hurts deep and it hurts personally, even if other people don’t “get it.”
I think it wonderfully humble of you to admit your mistake about how you view such grief in the way you did here, Bill. Your humility on these kinds of epiphanies is much appreciated. You walk your talk. You’re a man to ride the river with.
Apparently, so was Kobe.
A terrible loss that should not have happened, and, it does
“smell” of pilot error, sorry to say! Kobe was a class act, and I don’t follow the NBA.