what's this? your wings. light 'em up! gentlemen, it's a beautiful... ...day to fly.

you know, it's about appreciating every moment for me, you know, 'cause we've been through so much, and as your career kind of... i'm not an old man, but you know, you start seeing the light at the end of the tunnel is much brighter than the one at the beginning of the tunnel. so it's really about appreciating every day as it comes, you know, every game, every win, every loss, every practice. it's just soaking every day in. ♪ ♪ hello and welcome. i'm jesse l. martin. kobe bryant was just 18 years old when he took the nba by storm. over his 20 years in the league, he was an 18-time all star, five-time champion, and two-time olympic gold medalist. his achievements off the court were just as lauded.

he was an accomplished writer, academy award winner, and a self-described "girl dad" of four beautiful daughters. at 41, bryant had reached the pinnacle of his success, until one foggy january morning. this is how it really happened. ♪ [ crowd chanting "kobe" ] smith: kobe wanted to be the best. he wanted to be the best who ever lived. costas: dynamic, determined, focused, obsessive, goal-oriented, willful -- very willful. just able to will his way through the combination of talent and athletic character. sielski: i think kobe bryant is the consummate example of an athlete, or someone in any profession, who knew what he or she wanted to do

at the earliest possible age, was committed to staying on that path and doing whatever was necessary to achieve that goal, and then achieved that goal. bryant: i feel like god has blessed me with a talent to play this game. and i'd be doing a major injustice if i didn't try to maximize my potential. kobe had many chapters of his playing career, and now, he was entering yet another chapter of his post-career life. kobe bryant cared so much about everything he did, and he is completely adored in los angeles because of that. bryant: it doesn't get any better than this. that's the beauty about growing up in one city your whole career is that you grow up in the city, you know? the good, the bad, everything -- you know, you go through it all. you know? and right now, we're cruising.

♪ folks were out her mountain biking this morning and saw an aircraft in distress that went down into the hillside. [ siren wailing ] schiavo: the first call came in, that there was a helicopter crash in calabasas, and it was a fairly good-sized helicopter, and there were a number of people on board. i just remember sitting at my computer, just, you know, looking at the tweets and monitoring the news. and we saw one pop up -- it said, "kobe bryant was in a helicopter that crashed." when i saw the alert, i didn't believe it. i was just like, "this -- this has to be wrong." most people weren't even saying what it was. they were just saying, "is it true?" smith: i was sitting on my couch at home with my dad, who was visiting from colorado. and on comes the news.

and i'm like, "oh, that can't be true. that can't be true." it was just this hole in my heart, you know? just, why? you know, what happened? kobe -- 100% of his thought process was of his daughters and family. 'cause every time i would talk to him, he would mention his daughters and vanessa. and you could just tell that he had a really deep love for them. natalia and gigi are the ones that, kind of, you saw throughout a lot of his playing career. they were the one dressed in little laker uniforms. ♪ markazi: kobe and gigi just had this bond. kobe would've been proud of gigi no matter what she did, but he was so immensely proud of the way

that she played the game. he loved bragging about gigi, her thought process. he loved talking about the questions that she would ask. he would talk about the shots that she would take, the free-throws that she would make. gigi was the one that was so much like kobe. smith: kobe started the sports academy for gianna. it was all for gianna, because he saw that there was nothing out there for girls. james: christina mauser was a teacher and a women's basketball coach. she was 38 years old, and she was actually a very talented basketball player herself. and kobe hand-selected her to be the assistant coach for the mamba academy basketball team. mauser: christina was a talent, but more than her talent as a basketball player was her ability to connect with these girls. i mean, they adored her.

we were both teachers at a private school in orange county, in newport beach. and i was working with kobe. and we said, "i really want to get this girls' club team started," and so he got some talent from around the area, and he kind of recruited certain girls to play on the team. kobe said, "i need a good coach," and he said, "you think christina would be interested?" and so i asked her and she said, "no, i don't want to do it." [ laughs ] and i kind of persuaded her to give it a shot. elam: one of the things you need to understand is that kobe bryant lived in orange county and his basketball academy was in thousand oaks. so he lives south of los angeles, and his basketball academy is north of los angeles. it would take a very long time to drive there, but it's only about a 30-minute helicopter ride to get there.

riddell: and kobe bryant evidently decided that he just didn't want to have to put up with the traffic, so he started traveling a lot by helicopter. o'brien: the combination of celebrity and aviation, mystery and fear, is very compelling to people. and you know, what's interesting is you can connect a dot directly between what happened to john f. kennedy jr and what happened to kobe bryant.

riddell: you can be born with talent, and you can be born with the genetics, but to be the best, it requires so much more than that. do you think you were born to do this? no question, no question. [ laughs ] i mean, this is -- this is in my blood. i mean, my father played, my uncle played, my grandparents played, my grandma played. this is like, you know -- this is what we do. mauser: i know that he just adored his girls. he was dedicated to his family. he picked them up from carpool. he would drop them off and he would, you know -- he would bring them flowers to school on valentine's day. and he would kiss them, he'd hug them. he was a very affectionate, loving father. it was impossible to see kobe in public in later years in his life and not think of gigi. he clearly loved all his daughters, but you could see something there, that there was this shared love of basketball

and a shared desire, on their parts, for her to be great at that. riddell: kobe was frequently at wnba games, often with his daughter gianna, preparing her for the future, and we started learning about how he was working with her, showing her his incredible moves. and who knows what gianna would have become. and that's one of the biggest tragedies of this story, is that, i mean, she could have been amazing. and i think people expected that she was going to play in the wnba and be amazing. smith: i don't think kobe ever did anything without a purpose. and i think that's what this purpose was, was to create an environment for young girls to succeed. ♪ watt: we have spoken to two parents who were waiting at kobe's mamba sports academy. there was a tournament going on there this morning. kobe's team, his daughter's team, gigi -- they were supposed to be playing there at noon.

[ helicopter blades whirring ] kobe and the others were headed north of los angeles to an area near the camarillo airport for a basketball tournament. o'brien: the sikorsky s-76b is the absolute pinnacle of executive transportation in the sky. it's the limousine of the sky. it's as good as it gets in this category of helicopters. james: ara zobayan was a very experienced pilot. he had flown for 13 years. and in addition to flying kobe, he had also flown a lot of other very high-profile clients. herrmann: this pilot was kobe bryant's and his family preferred pilot and also preferred helicopter company. he exclusively would request this specific pilot. o'brien: by all accounts, ara zobayan was an exemplary pilot.

experienced, safe, practically spotless record, in excess of 8,500 hours, puts him in an elite category of helicopter pilots. kobe bryant was willing to let his children fly alone with this pilot. so that's a pretty high bar for anybody. james: there were nine people on board that day. ara zobayan, kobe bryant, his daughter gigi. you also have two of gigi's teammates, payton chester and alyssa altobelli, as well as their parents -- sarah chester and john and keri altobelli -- and christina mauser. mauser: and my oldest daughter penny played on the lower division of the mamba team. but the week prior, penny had had a 104 fever. because she wasn't feeling good, we kept her off the helicopter. i had a show the night before.

i got home around midnight, and we said goodnight. christina was up waiting for me. and then she said, "i have to be out the door by 7:00." i said, "okay." so she says, "so if i don't see you all, i'll be back by noon." i remember her kissing me, saying, "i love you." and i was so tired, i didn't wake up. she walked out the door, and i heard the door shut, and i was gonna get up and say, "hey, goodbye," and i just didn't.

at 15, 16, 17, all of the talk, the money, the attention -- that didn't matter to me at all. and it still doesn't, because, you know, what i love to do is play basketball, so as long as that love is there and my focus is there, i'll be fine. ♪ riddell: the summer of 1978 was a big deal for pop culture and sports. so, if you were around at the time, you'll remember the movie "grease" that was dominating at the box office that summer. larry bird was drafted to the celtics. and on august the 23rd, 1978, something happened that most people would've completely missed, but actually, it's a date that is highly relevant because arguably, it helped change the course of the nba. that was the day that kobe bryant was born.

sielski: joe and pam bryant got married in college. they had two daughters before kobe bean bryant was born. lazenby: and kobe, the great steak from japan, was a favorite of the bryants. they loved the name, and that played a role in their naming their son kobe. sielski: joe bryant grew up in southwest philadelphia. he was an absolute basketball star on the playgrounds of the city. now, kobe got all that style, that love of style, that love of being a showman, from joe, but the killer side of kobe -- that came from his mother. pam cox bryant was the killer in the equation. the hard-nosed, really fiercely competitive personality.

when kobe bryant talks about the mamba mentality, his mother pam is where the mamba mentality came from. egan: joe had been a first-round pick for the 76ers, and his nba career wasn't going probably as well as he wanted. the italian league was an up-and-coming league, and i think they saw it as a great opportunity, maybe, to get himself on track. joe could make a good living and be able to play in the way he wanted to play. so he and the family moved to italy, and he spent the better part of eight years there. lazenby: kobe -- you know, he was the ball boy. he was the mop boy on the floor. taking it all in, in wide-eyed wonder. kobe and his sisters learned the language quickly, but it was a tough adjustment for american children to go into that european setting. the fact that kobe bryant grew up in italy, he had very much an international perspective.

he was very worldly in his interests, in terms of food and culture. and i think that broadened his perspective once he came back to the us in the late autumn of 1991. they wanted, always, ultimately, to get back to philadelphia. joe and pam's roots were all in philadelphia. and that's how they settled in on lower merion, 'cause they wanted a good academic place for their kids to go. joe bryant wanted his son to succeed very, very badly. i definitely think he had a dream about kobe as much as kobe had the dream. sielski: kobe is in eighth grade when the family returns. and already, there's scuttlebutt around him. who is this kid who just kind of came out of nowhere? egan: the first time i saw kobe play, i was playing in a rec league one saturday afternoon. it was all men playing, and i saw this one guy. he looked like he was about, maybe a junior in high school. skinny, about 6 feet tall, but good and played hard. and so, after the game was over, i asked him where he went to school. and he said, "bala."

and the only place i could think of was a middle school. and i said, "how old are you?" and he said, "i'm 13." and i thought, "oh, my god. oh, my god." i said, "what's your name?" and he said, "i'm kobe bryant." early on, kobe liked to shoot the ball. he liked to shoot the ball a lot. while he was a freshman, his teammates actually resented him for it. but as he gets better as a player, he becomes more unselfish and the team starts to improve. even if he had been a terrible player, he would've been one of my all-time favorites to coach. just because he loved the game so much, he worked so hard at it, he was so passionate about it. you could tell just by speaking with him that he had an extra gear of intelligence that not only most basketball players, but most high school kids don't have. sielski: kobe was a very strong academic student, very curious. in particular, he liked his english classes.

just about everything that kobe wrote about in high school had a little something to do with basketball. treatman: i could see it in 11th grade, for absolute sure, that this wasn't just gonna be a great player, this wasn't just gonna be a great college player, this was a 10-time nba all star. sielski: by the time he's a senior, kobe really is a celebrity. everybody in the philadelphia area, and even around the country to a great degree, know him as the best high-school player in the country. after one game in the state tournament, every single player on the opposing team that had just lost to lower marion lined up at center court to get kobe's autograph. lazenby: kobe told me his great gift in life was that he knew what he wanted to do from a very young age. he obviously wanted to be a pro basketball player just like his father. he wanted to get to the nba,

and he wanted to get there as quickly as he possibly could. egan: we didn't really think that he would do it right away. but of course, he had his own plan. so, they held a press conference at the high school. sielski: he is so confident in that moment. uh, kobe bryant. sielski: you watch him stand up there, there's no hesitation, there's no "um"s, no "ah"s. he's playing to the cameras. and he pauses at one moment. and he says... i've decided to take my talents to, uh... sielski: then he puts his hand to his chin and he pretends like he's hesitating, and he's really not. and the crowd starts to laugh and cheer a little bit. and this big smile comes over his face. no, i have decided to skip college and take my talent to the nba. sielski: and you see, in so many ways, the confidence, even the arrogance, the sort of star power, the star presence that he has, everything that's ahead for him, over the next 25 years.

you ready? -showtime. this is gonna be epic. [ barking ] it's what the poster said. do you want to make out or? nope. i meant yes. he's a bon garçon. i give amazing sponge-baths. can i get a room? [ chuckling ] ♪ ♪ chef's kiss. welcome back to "how it really happened." kobe once told a friend that he didn't fear death. he had been reading about the samurai and quoted, "a beautiful death is inspirational. if you can inspire people through your life, you never die." six months later, kobe bryant would be gone.

kobe bryant was heading to a basketball tournament. he was bringing his 13-year-old daughter, gianna. she was on the way to play. there were a number of parents, a number of children, heading to this basketball tournament. ♪ o'brien: that morning, the pilot, ara zobayan, two hours before the flight, did his routine weather check, and the weather was not great, but not no-go either. moist air and fog had drifted in from the pacific ocean. schiavo: in los angeles, those clouds, on a cloudy day, can hang right at the top of the mountains. markazi: i was actually in calabasas. i remember distinctly talking to my dad saying, like, "are you okay to drive? because we really cannot see the street in front of us." i'd never seen fog like that.

schiavo: island express helicopters, on the two prior days, had canceled 13 flights because of weather conditions. and the weather conditions on this day, depending upon who you ask, were maybe a little better or were not better at all. ♪ sielski: team kobe knew that if he was going to maximize his star power to be as famous and as great as he wanted to be, he had to do it in a big city. kobe was gonna get to the lakers by hook or by crook. and so he made it clear that he wasn't gonna play for certain teams if they drafted him. jerry west hatches a plan. he has a trade in place to make sure that the lakers acquire kobe bryant. treatman: kobe had a chip on his shoulder because there were people who doubted him.

he wanted to prove that he wasn't coming in as some gimmick. he wanted to play right away. sielski: so, when the lakers acquired shaquille o'neal in that off-season, and when they made the draft-day trade to get kobe, there was an expectation that the lakers were gonna be the dominant team, not only in the western conference, but in the entire league. but there was some stumbling right out of the gate. guthrie: kobe was immediately thrust into the spotlight, and he said that that was very difficult, that it was hard to navigate. even when i came out of high school, i think people were kind of giving me the cold shoulder to begin with 'cause i think, unfortunately, some people wanted me to fail. because i defied the odds. "i don't care what you guys say, i don't care how old you guys are, you're wrong. i can do this." garciduenas: i don't think it was intentional, and his teammates may have taken it the wrong way,

but he separated himself and watched tape, he stayed in his room, and he immediately distanced himself from a lot of other players. lazenby: he could be standoffish. his pro teammates in los angeles, these older men, had no way to figure out this kid who was invading their lives and turning things upside down. [ indistinct shout ] costas: rookies are supposed to be deferential, no matter how talented they may be. but when they have an alpha personality and they're not willing to check it at the door, that's gonna rub some people the wrong way. lazenby: he's a kid, he's in this man's game. and not only that, but he doesn't relate. reporter: are you different from other guys in the nba, do you think? in your heart and mind and soul? i mean, i don't enjoy doing some of the things

that other players might enjoy doing. not to say what they do is bad, i mean, i just don't like doing it. some of the guys like to go out to bars, or go out to clubs, things like that. i really have no interest for it. lazenby: kobe bryant was very lonely. it manifested itself in the fact that he would take the time to talk to a sports writer like me on the phone. there was nowhere for him to turn. he was looking for people who were willing to understand him. sielski: after games, kobe would often call up his agent's assistant and go to hang out at her apartment. they would watch hbo together because kobe had nowhere else to go. when kobe bryant moved to los angeles, his parents initially lived with him. sielski: he bought a house in pacific palisades, and his parents and one of his sisters moved in with him and lived with him for that first year or two that he was with the lakers. his mother would make home-cooked meals for him, macaroni and cheese. it was a very comfortable,

kind of homey environment for kobe to live in his first couple of years with the lakers. there was much about kobe's life that his family managed. he was making the money of a man, but he had this protracted teen existence with his mom and pops right there with him. sielski: i think there was definitely a sense, on kobe's part, that his parents were going to be along for the ride on his journey throughout the nba, for perhaps longer than he would have liked. kobe would sometimes make reference to the fact that he had his parents on allowance. these events over money were such a factor that kobe bryant walked right onto leno and made a joke about it before for his rookie season. it was fresh in his mind. leno: you don't have to cut the lawn ever again, do you? [ laughter ] well, see, now the good thing about it, i get to give my parents allowance. yeah. oh, yeah, you give them allowance? the first couple years were tough.

i mean, he's a boy playing with grown men. treatman: and he had told me he was frustrated he wasn't playing more as a -- in his first two years. he felt he was unstoppable. costas: he comes in as a phenom. he's tabbed as the heir to michael jordan. he isn't quite ready for that immediately. you can see how good he is and potentially how good he is right away. this might be the only chance for somebody -- a kid up in the stands -- to see you play. so, from that aspect, whenever i step out there on the basketball floor, i want to give it my all. it wasn't just fans in los angeles who fell in love with the kid kobe bryant. you could just feel it growing in the fan base. "oh, this kid is on his way to being something."

blitzer: they were simply going to a girls' basketball game. gianna was playing basketball, and kobe bryant was gonna coach. they were gonna go have some fun on a sunday afternoon. ♪ elam: so, what we know on january 26th, 2020 --

kobe bryant as well as eight other passengers including his daughter, gigi, took off from orange county en route to camarillo, which is near thousand oaks. they had a basketball game for his daughter and a couple of her teammates who were also on the helicopter. petitt: the pilot had flown the same route the day prior. he's aware of the route. he's aware of everything. herrmann: but because of the presenting weather challenges on the morning of the accident, they had to alter that flight. and they took a different route to their destination. watt: now, we have been told by the la police department that sunday morning, around the time of this crash, the lapd grounded their helicopter fleet because the weather was not good enough for them to fly. the visibility was low. herrmann: it's significant that the police and sheriff's department grounded their helicopter air department.

it tells you that that division felt that it was not safe to fly that day. that situation was compounded by the fact that the pilot checked the weather two hours before a flight and did not, again, just before taking off, reassess the weather and reassess the flight risks. the pilot should always assess the flight risks before taking off because the weather can change in 10 minutes, and they should have checked it prior to departure. ♪ i remember walking out of the arena. and i asked kobe, "what are you going to do this summer, man?" he said, "basketball. there is nothing else." and even as he was saying that, he was searching for that something in his life.

kobe was a musician briefly -- a rap artist. ♪ your love's a sword, slicing gently through my body ♪ ♪ burns so sweet ♪ pincus: kobe met vanessa on a video shoot, and they fell in love pretty quickly. markazi: vanessa was someone that we saw with kobe. they were together a lot, but we never really heard from vanessa. it was very much a public relationship, but she was very private. it was young love. he wanted out of the lonely hell he was in, and that relationship became that way out for him. smith: i remember when kobe got engaged, nobody knew who the girl was, and then they find out she's a high-school student and gorgeous, but nobody knew anything about him, about what he did at night, what he did during the day, except for practice and watch film.

one of the biggest things that i remembered initially about the relationship with kobe and vanessa is that there was a lot of pushback from his parents that this was happening too quickly. this was not a relationship that his parents were comfortable with. sielski: i think kobe felt like it was time for him to break out on his own, that there was some tension there, developing between him and his family. and i think it was a shock to his system and to theirs when he said to them, "it's time for me to get married. it's time for me to embark on my own journey." i love my parents, and i love my sisters and my family to death. but at the same time, you want that space to grow on your own. at that point in time, it was a little lonely. it was a little lonely. and then i was fortunate enough to get engaged and find the woman i want to marry, and it wasn't lonely no more. lazenby: and as the hollywood drama plays out, it was right there. "you can say what you want to me, parents.

you can try to control my life. you're not controlling my life." it led to him throwing off those controls in dramatic fashion. that was the moment that we sensed some conflict. and you really stopped seeing the parents. sielski: the break between kobe and his family was very surprising and was very stark. there were very few people who were along for his ride for the entirety of his life and his career. and as it turns out, his mother and father were kind of caught in that way of him looking at the world. ♪ lazenby: kobe's work ethic still drove the bus. he may not have been the top dog, he may not have been the favored one, it may have been shaquille o'neal's team, but it all coalesced into this amazing championship run.

reporter: the lakers beat the indiana pacers 116 to 111 to win their first nba championship in 12 years. mumford: so, winning 2000, the championship, i think it just gave him the feedback he needed to get, to say that there's more. ♪ lazenby: on april 18th, 2001, kobe and vanessa got married. it was cirriddell:es fraught it was very, very intimate. no teammates were there. his mom and dad weren't even there. lazenby: there would be further alienation from the event. it was the kind of thing that led to much more difficulty and heartbreak down the road. ♪ and the moment they won that championship,

his teammates were celebrating, and the whole locker room was going crazy. sielski: kobe is holding the larry o'brien trophy in an embrace, and he has this kind of forlorn look on his face. by that time, he has already had a falling out with his family, his relationship with his mom and dad is fractured, and here he is in a moment that he should be celebrating like no other, and he really can't because the people he's been closest to his entire life aren't there to celebrate it with him. lazenby: kobe's troubled personal life, more than anything, really brought the focus of the basketball court as his sanctuary. kobe bryant suddenly was hit with that flood-tide of emotion about his family, about everything that he had bottled up to go through that. it's the picture of all the price that kobe bryant had paid for his greatness.

the lakers would go on a course to win a third straight championship, and then he would tear apart his life. he ran into his destructive moment in colorado, and everything was gone. sometimes the bigger they are the bigger the price they paid, and that's certainly true of kobe bryant.

to improve and to find out more about this game, and to do it to the point where we win another championship. i can't just level off and not grow and not improve as a basketball player. ♪ lazenby: kobe had flown out to colorado for some therapy on his knee. he stayed at a resort there. there was a young worker at the hotel. there was an engagement in kobe's room. riddell: the first time i ever really remember covering kobe bryant was the 4th of july, 2003, when a warrant was issued for his arrest relating to this alleged sexual assault in eagle rock, colorado. it was just such a huge deal at the time.

kobe and one or two of his bodyguards -- he had several, who i got to know -- drove up from denver and checked into the lodge at cordillera. and then he made friends with this woman, he asked her for a tour of the hotel, and she gave him a tour, and they went up to his room and started making out. it got to be more physical. the bellman saw her immediately after it happened and saw scratches around her neck, and she was crying, and then she eventually then went to the police. lazenby: and suddenly, his life went from the kid, this monastic life where he gave everything to the game, to this guy in the police photos. right now, the district attorney here in this county deciding whether or not to file charges against kobe bryant.

smith: and i'll never forget standing outside that courthouse and pronouncing what they had decided, which was that kobe bryant was going to be charged. and it was stunning. tonight, kobe bryant, one of the most marketable sports stars in this country, was charged with sexual assault. it was a huge issue during the season. it definitely, you know, cast a negative light on kobe, around the world, around the league. kobe bryant was adamant that he did not have sex with someone against their wishes. i'm innocent. i didn't force her to do anything against her will. he admitted to adultery and being unfaithful to vanessa. bryant: i sit here in front of you guys, furious at myself, disgusted at myself

for making a mistake of adultery. we saw the press conference where she was sitting there with him. and she looked very strong, but she looked like a ghost. they both looked terrible. and the way that vanessa stood by kobe and the way vanessa was next to kobe, and it took a lot strength, obviously, for her to do that. it would've been easy for her to walk away or simply not be a part of that. smith: there was nothing resolved for a year. it was a very serious allegation. it was o.j.-like. but kobe went like business as usual. he managed that stress, he managed whatever he needed to do, the team supported him. but basketball can be a refuge and a way to just let go of all of that other stuff. bryant: it's tough. sometimes it doesn't seem like there's light at the end of the tunnel, you know. you just, you pray, you have faith, and the next thing you know, the light is brighter than ever.

and all of a sudden... anderson cooper: with less than one week before opening statements were to begin, the criminal case against the nba star has been dropped. the case is over. smith: kobe ended up settling with his accuser. he was confident, he was resolute in his innocence. i'm innocent. smith: and he just moved on. but kobe's endorsement deals all but dried up. nobody wanted anything to do with him. lazenby: you could argue that when it got to his troubles at colorado, that his tremendous will and focus, that determination allowed him to survive such a dramatic undoing. ♪ ♪ schiavo: so, when the pilot and all of his passengers took off from the john wayne airport,

air traffic control told the pilot that the weather was instrument flight rules. in other words, you look out the window and you fly where you're going. that's visual flight rules. instrument flight rules means that you must check in, and your every move -- left, right, up, down, altitude, headings, you name it -- is controlled by air traffic control. flying the los angeles corridor from south to north is tricky, it's congested. and what the pilot does, he's looking for two roads. he's looking for one highway and then the 101. it sounds odd that here's a pilot following roads. but pilots follow roads all the time. so, when air traffic control told the pilot that it was instrument flight rules,

and your visibility is gone, that meant the pilot had very limited choices. what's interesting about helicopter pilots is they don't get a lot of instrument time. he had 8,500-plus hours of helicopter time, but he had only 75 hours of instrument time in his entire career, and 68 of those were simulated instrument times. herrmann: and as he neared burbank, he saw that the weather conditions were even lower than what was forecasted. that should have been a big red flag. schiavo: the pilot had to either get down under the clouds, get up above over the clouds, because in instrument flight rules, you can't see where you're going. you're basically flying blind. this is a case of a split-second decision that was just 100% wrong. the pilot advised they were climbing to avoid a cloud layer.

herrmann: contact is terminated between air traffic control and the pilot. that effectively means that the pilot is on his own. the helicopter starts descending. the pilot has experienced something that can be very deadly. herrmann: this accident did not need to happen. this accident was entirely preventable. scholes: no doubt about it, this is the most devastating day in nba history. out of an abundance of caution, kobe and vanessa tried to avoid flying in a helicopter together, thinking that if something happened to one of them, the other would be there for their kids. a simple gesture, but one they never imagined would end in tragedy. what happened in the final moments that brought down that doomed flight? next, in part two. i'm jesse l. martin. thanks for watching. goodnight.