Vanessa Bryant Is Suing the Helicopter Operator She Says Is Responsible for the Deaths of Her Husband and Daughter

https://jezebel.com/vanessa-bryant-i...say-1841896546

Vanessa Bryant has filed a lawsuit against the company that operated the
helicopter that killed her husband, Kobe Bryant, and their 13-year-old daughter
Gianna, saying the pilot was negligent by flying in cloudy conditions when he
should have cancelled the flight.

In addition to naming the owner and operator, the suit also names pilot Ara
Zobayan’s representative or successor, saying he was “negligent in eight
different ways, including failing to properly assess the weather, flying into
conditions he wasn’t cleared for and failing to control the helicopter,”
according to the AP.

Zobayan had been cited back in 2015 for violating visual flight rules that
required him to see where he was going. The pilot, of course, died along with
everyone else on board when the chopper crashed in Calabasas on January 26.

According to the complaint,

“On information and belief, Defendant Island Express Helicopters employed
Defendant Zobayan with conscious disregard of the rights or safety of others and
authorized or ratified his wrong conduct, and itself engaged in conduct with
malice, oppression, or fraud.”

In his final transmission before the crash, Zobayan told air traffic control
that he was climbing to get above the clouds. He was 100 feet away from doing
that when the helicopter banked left and crashed into a hillside.

more at
https://apnews.com/574018915e32e3e7e...source=Twitter



*