The Entrepreneur Forum | Financial Freedom | Starting a Business | Motivation | Money | Success

Welcome to the only entrepreneur forum dedicated to building life-changing wealth.

Build a Fastlane business. Earn real financial freedom. Join free.

Join over 80,000 entrepreneurs who have rejected the paradigm of mediocrity and said "NO!" to underpaid jobs, ascetic frugality, and suffocating savings rituals— learn how to build a Fastlane business that pays both freedom and lifestyle affluence.

Free registration at the forum removes this block.

Kobe Bryant Dies in Helicopter Crash

MJ DeMarco

I followed the science; all I found was money.
Staff member
FASTLANE INSIDER
EPIC CONTRIBUTOR
Read Rat-Race Escape!
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Summit Attendee
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
445%
Jul 23, 2007
38,083
169,506
Utah
Not only was Kobe a great BB player, but his post-BB career was going to be of legendary Fastlane stuff, stuff any of us could even glimmer to achieve. He wasn't someone who was going to take his retirement riches and fade off into the sunset. Man was driven, with purpose... his ACT 2 was going to be just as great as ACT 1 ... and then there are the children.

The last moments must have been utterly horrifying. When a plane loses power, it can do some gliding. Not so with a helicopter.

This is an absence that will be felt deeply for decades.
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

G-Man

Cantankerous Contributor
FASTLANE INSIDER
EPIC CONTRIBUTOR
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Summit Attendee
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
544%
Jan 13, 2014
1,992
10,838
It's all anybody is talking about at work right now. I'm listening to soul searching conversations right now between guys I've never heard talk about anything more substantive than boats and hoes.

Healthy dude with a promising future and virtually unlimited resources and gone in a second. A lot of talking about what's important in life, etc.
 

AFMKelvin

Some Profound Quote Goes Here
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
199%
Jan 26, 2016
733
1,456
31
Rice, Texas
This guy was flying around in helicopters regularly because it wasn't worth his time to get in a car. That's a level that I aspire to get to.

I always thought about this. But do you really save time riding a helicopter? Because you have to drive to the helicopter's location.

The odds of a car crash been deadly are low. But they increase in a helicopter.

A few months ago an owner of a big football team in England died exactly the same way while traveling outside the stadium.
 

AgainstAllOdds

Legendary Contributor
EPIC CONTRIBUTOR
Read Fastlane!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
647%
Dec 26, 2014
2,274
14,724
32
Chicago, IL
I always thought about this. But do you really save time riding a helicopter? Because you have to drive to the helicopter's location.

The odds of a car crash been deadly are low. But they increase in a helicopter.

A few months ago an owner of a big football team in England died exactly the same way while traveling outside the stadium.

At that level of wealth, you're not "driving to the helicopter's location." You have a helipad where you live.

"During his career with the Los Angeles Lakers, it was common for Bryant to travel by helicopter from his Orange County, California, home to Lakers games at Staples Center in downtown Los Angeles. It helped him avoid two-hour travel times through L.A.’s notorious traffic while also keeping his body fresh."
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

advantagecp

Bronze Contributor
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
146%
Feb 7, 2015
109
159
64
I have a pilot's license so I can't imagine what it was like knowing their helicopter was going down.

From everything I have read the bird was operating perfectly and was flown into a mountain in IFR conditions. So it wasn't exactly 'going down'. I will be amazed if the investigation does not find this was due to pilot error.
 

hellolin

Bronze Contributor
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
117%
May 27, 2015
358
420
38
I posted this on my facebook feed yesterday, and will post it here today again:

Why Kobe's death and the way it happened, is the last thing America needs right now.
Kobe has worked so hard in his life on his craft, because a deep desire to be in control of his life and decisions in the most stressful and most chaotic situations possible. To be in control in such situations, one has to work so hard on his mind and body, through a long period of time. Those processes are all captured in his own book after he retired from the game.
In today's America, people are OBSESSED about issues that they have no personal control with, and instantly dismiss any criticisms once someone points out that they should work on things that they can control first. Is this uncontrollable factor have undue influence in my life? Sure it does! But is it the only factor that made my life as it is right now? Hell no!
Imagine being Kobe in his last minutes of his life, what an irony it must felt to him. That he worked so hard on controlling the uncontrollable, that eventually his life ended on something he had no control with. The way it happened is terrible for the American phycology, in the very moment our nation needs a hero that can show people that their life can be in their own control, that we do not need politicians like the one start with a B or T tells us that their fairy tale solutions can somehow make America go back to an imaginary good times of the past, we lost a national hero that symbolizes the embodied liberal ideal, that one can exercise their own will to be in control of their own destiny.
 

Strm

Mamba Mentality!
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
221%
Feb 4, 2018
340
751
32
Estonia
Is anyone else re-thinking their priorities right now? Because I am.

Absolutely. I've been slowlaneing away from my family for too long now. Working abroad so I can have a much better salary than in my home country. I have no kids, because I want to focus on building a business as much as possible, but a girlfriend (together for 7 years now) and 2 bunnies still makes a perfect family for me.

I will go home next wednesday for one week. And then will come back to work here for the last time and will find a job back home in the spring. I have enough saved to start my business.

I still can't believe this has happened to KB and all the others on that copter. It feels so wrong and unreal and I just feel sick. I followed his every step, while he was playing and after the retirement. If you are starting out and need motivation or just a role model how to work hard - like CRAZY HARD, make sacrifices, set priorities and NOT to be like everybody else, he's the one to study.
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

InspireHD

Gold Contributor
FASTLANE INSIDER
Read Rat-Race Escape!
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Summit Attendee
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
243%
Dec 9, 2014
516
1,254
From everything I have read the bird was operating perfectly and was flown into a mountain in IFR conditions. So it wasn't exactly 'going down'. I will be amazed if the investigation does not find this was due to pilot error.

I read that the helicopter did a climbing left turn and then had a rapid decent prior to losing any radar contact or flight path tracking. It was also reported that they hit the ground at 184 mph.

While this is all a guess, it’s possible that the pilot was attempting to avoid flying into the clouds but then needed to climb to avoid terrain. It would be disorienting going from flying visually to going up into the clouds and transitioning to instruments. Then, to be in a climbing turn, in the clouds, could cause you to lose awareness of direction. If there was any type of distraction like messing with the radio or transponder, the pilot may not have been aware of the helicopter making too tight of a turn or basically rolling over. At that point, it might be too late if he lost control and couldn’t save it. There is no radio communication indicating an emergency.

From what I’ve seen of the crash area, it looks more flat and on a dirt road rather than on the side of the hill. It seems more likely that the rapid decent was downward from loss of control and not necessarily just flying in the clouds and then meeting a mountain without realizing it before it was too late.

That is all my opinion based on the limited information I’ve seen. I would agree that it was probably pilot error.

The NTSB usually has a summary out within 10 days explaining the crash and what was found. The official investigation could take longer than a year.
 

Ather

New Contributor
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
100%
Jan 26, 2020
5
5
Rest up king. Thank you for making me love basketball as much as I do today.
 

BlindSide

Bronze Contributor
FASTLANE INSIDER
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
204%
Mar 16, 2017
193
394
30
Los Angeles
It's been tough to get over. It doesn't feel the same as when a family member dies, but man it is painful.

He's been such an incredible guy. I live in the area now and you can feel the pain. I swear, that Sunday felt so gloomy here, it was unbelievable.

Has to be one of the more heartbreaking stories I've ever heard. This one will be felt for a long time.
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

daniel_m

Bronze Contributor
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
260%
Feb 26, 2019
67
174
At that level of wealth, you're not "driving to the helicopter's location." You have a helipad where you live.

"During his career with the Los Angeles Lakers, it was common for Bryant to travel by helicopter from his Orange County, California, home to Lakers games at Staples Center in downtown Los Angeles. It helped him avoid two-hour travel times through L.A.’s notorious traffic while also keeping his body fresh."

I don't think that's quite right. The reports are that they took off from the John Wayne Airport in orange county.

Regardless, you're not getting me to get in a helicopter on a foggy day when even the LAPD isn't allowed in the sky. Nope. The pilot had to request special VFR clearance, and like someone already said in this thread, the conditions did not permit that. I don't blame any of the passengers who got on that helicopter because they didn't know any better. They're just passengers.

However, the pilot along with whoever cleared him to fly that day under VFR made a deadly mistake that will impact the world forever. You don't fly through extremely thick fog and risk lives to make it an hour earlier to an 8th graders basketball game. Maybe it's hard to say no to Kobe, but it's still lives being put at risk. This looks like it was almost guaranteed to be a result of pilot error.
 

Post New Topic

Please SEARCH before posting.
Please select the BEST category.

Post new topic

Guest post submissions offered HERE.

Latest Posts

New Topics

Fastlane Insiders

View the forum AD FREE.
Private, unindexed content
Detailed process/execution threads
Ideas needing execution, more!

Join Fastlane Insiders.

Top