In a tragic helicopter crash, basketball icon Kobe Bryant took his last breath on Sunday. Bryant is a five-time NBA champion with the Los Angeles Lakers and a legend in the sports field.
The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department states that Kobe Bryant (41) along with nine others died on the spot when the helicopter slammed into a hillside in Calabasas. Among other victims was his 13-year-old daughter Gianna who lost her life. Also, a parent and Gianna’s travel sports teammate was also in the chopper when the incident took place.
“The NBA family is devastated,” NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said in a statement. And in a sign that Bryant’s impact went deep into the city where he made his career, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said he “will live forever in the heart of Los Angeles, and will be remembered through the ages as one of our greatest heroes.”
The investigators have reached the crash site, the National Transportation Safety Board said. All the passengers along with Bryant and his daughter were traveling in a Sikorsky S-76B helicopter. Island Express Holding Corp. in Van Nuys, California owns the chopper. It tracks by the flight-tracking website Flightradar24, as per Federal Aviation Administration records.
The helicopter took off from John Wayne Airport in Orange County at 9:06 a.m, as per preliminary data, the Flightradar24 stated.
As per the last record, the helicopter was flying at 1700 feet altitude at 176 miles per hour. The photos from the crash site show how the chopper hit an undeveloped hillside.
Bryant and his Unending Legacy
Bryant spoke in 2010 with Yahoo! Sports about his legacy.
“When my career is over, I want them to think of me as an overachiever despite the talent that I have,” Bryant said. “To think of me as a person that’s overachieved, that would mean a lot to me. That means I put a lot of work in and squeezed every ounce of juice out of this orange that I could.
Kobe Bryant’s work ethic and scores became the legend in sports history. In 1996, Bryant joined NBA. He was the youngest player directly out of the school. This led to a huge impact on the Lakers. Legends like Jerry West, Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Magic Johnson were in competition for the team’s next star.
In his 20 years career, Bryant won two gold medals in the Olympics. Also, it won a regular-season MVP and two NBA finals MVPs in 2008. He retired with 33,643 points and led his league scoring twice.
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