Vanessa Bryant has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the helicopter company involved in the crash that killed her husband Kobe, her 13-year-old daughter Gianna and seven other people in Calabasas, Calif on Jan. 26.
In the suit filed Monday at Los Angeles Superior Court, Bryant claimed the pilot, Ara Zobayan, “was careless and negligent by flying in cloudy conditions” and suggested the flight should have been aborted, according to ESPN. The suit named Island Express Helicopters Inc. of Los Angeles as the company in question and calls it liable for Zobayan’s actions that day.
Here’s more about the lawsuit, via ESPN:
(The lawsuit) said the company failed to supervise and train (Zobayan), allowed him to fly in unsafe weather and didn’t implement reasonable flight safety rules and policies.
It asserted the helicopter owner failed to install an alarm system that would have warned the pilot he was close to hitting the ground. The NTSB has recommended that helicopters like the Sikorsky model that crashed be equipped with a terrain avoidance and warning system, but the FAA only requires it for air ambulances.
The NSTB has yet to determine what caused the crash. A finding isn’t expected for at least another year.
