Basketball star Kobe Bryant dies in helicopter crash

Basketball legend Kobe Bryant died in a helicopter crash in Calabasas, California yesterday morning. “It is with great sadness that we learn of the death of Kobe Bryant and four others in a helicopter crash in Calabasas,” the city said on Twitter. “The aircraft went down in a remote field off Las Virgenes around 10.00 this morning.

Nobody on the ground was hurt.” The NBA star, 41, was in the private helicopter when it went down and a fire broke out, TMZ reported. No one on board survived. It said one of the people Bryant was travelling with in his private helicopter was his eldest daughter Gianna.

The other people involved in the crash have not been identified and the cause of the crash is under investigation. Sources said that the helicopter was on the way to the basketball player’s Mamba Academy in Thousand Oaks, California. Bryant often used the helicopter to travel to and from games when he was playing for the Los Angeles Lakers.

The US Federal Aviation Administration identified the crashed helicopter as a Sikorsky S-76, and said it and the National Transport Safety Board would investigate.