In honor of the first anniversary of the helicopter crash that claimed the lives of Kobe Bryant and eight other people, USA TODAY Sports is reliving the Lakers legend’s life through a six-day series of articles, images, and videos.

Initially, horror spread throughout the world when the chopper crashed into a California hillside early on January 26, 2020, killing Kobe Bryant and the other eight occupants.

Next, the question was: How?

How did this apparently ordinary outing to a kid’s basketball game become tragic? How did Bryant’s years-long use of a helicopter end in a crash?

How on earth could this have occurred?

Firefighters respond to a helicopter crash scene in Calabasas, California, which claimed the lives of eight people, including Kobe Bryant.
Firefighters respond to a helicopter crash scene in Calabasas, California, which claimed the lives of eight people, including Kobe Bryant.
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, Mark J. Terrell
The details of the disaster, including the weather, the pilot’s expertise, and the safety measures of the helicopter, are known over a year later. And only a few weeks remain until the reason of the crash is definitively determined.

On February 9, the National Transportation Safety Board will publish its final report on the incident, which will include a recommendation for safety measures as well as the proximate cause.

Meanwhile, the board has made public 1,852 pages of factual data gathered throughout its inquiry, including video footage from nearby cameras, photographs, emails, text messages, transcripts of interviews, and reports on local meteorological conditions.

Brickhouse, Anthony
“Accident investigation is really like putting a puzzle back together.”
Anthony Brickhouse, an associate professor of aerospace safety at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and a former NTSB investigator, described accident inquiry as “really like putting a puzzle back together.”

“It’s an extremely careful procedure. It takes time for something to happen. It needs extensive investigation and study.”

Here is what we currently know about the crash based on NTSB documents, as investigators work to refine their final report.

After thirty minutes, the chopper took off from the John Wayne-Orange County Airport and flew to Camarillo, California. From there, the passengers were to be taken to a nearby Thousand Oaks youth basketball tournament. Gianna, Bryant’s 13-year-old daughter, John and Keri Altobelli and their daughter Alyssa, Sarah Chester and her daughter Payton, and assistant coach Christina Mauser all boarded the aircraft with Bryant.

After roughly fifteen minutes of flying north, the chopper decelerated and circled around Glendale to give way to aircraft at a nearby airport. Then, it flew between 400 and 600 feet above the ground as it followed a highway into the hills close to Calabasas, California.

An air traffic controller asked Zobayan, “You just going to stay down low at that for all the way to Camarillo?”

“Yes, sir,” answered the pilot. “Low altitude.”

A few minutes later, there was a shift change at Southern California TRACON, which serves the area’s airports with air traffic control. Furthermore, the chopper was flying into progressively more steep terrain with low visibility that morning.