Kobe Bryant‘s helicopter pilot, Ara Zobayan, reportedly received a violation from the FAA in 2015—years before the crash weeks ago that killed nine people, including the basketball star and his daughter Gigi.
As ESPN noted, Zobayan got into trouble after a Federal Aviation Administration investigator found he had violated the rules by “crossing into busy airspace near Los Angeles International Airport on May 11, 2015.”
An FAA enforcement record has reportedly surfaced that shows Zobayan was reprimanded for “flying without permission into airspace while he had reduced visibility.”
According to ESPN, the report doesn’t state if Zobayan had other passengers at the time.
The FAA investigator counseled Kobe’s pilot on the violation and at that time Zobayan “admitted his error, took responsibility for his action, and was willing to take any other necessary steps toward compliance.”
The report concluded, “There are no indications that this is a repeated incident and there are no signs that this incident is a trend with Mr. Zobayan.”
But the bombshell news about the pilot’s past is sure to shock Kobe’s fans around the world.
The Lakers legend, 41, and Gigi, 13, and seven other people including Zobayan, 50, all died in the helicopter crash in Calabasas, California on Sunday, January 26.
The group was en route to a junior basketball game at Kobe’s Mamba Sports Academy in Thousand Oaks.
Foggy weather conditions apparently caused the pilot to smash into a hillside.
It burst into flames and started a brush fire in the Calabasas mountains.
NTSB board member Jennifer Homendy said that it was a “high energy impact crash.”
The coroner later revealed that the cause of death for all on the helicopter was “blunt trauma.”
A public memorial for the crash victims is scheduled for Monday, February 24, at the Staples Center in Los Angeles.
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