Kobe Bryant has died in a helicopter crash in California aged 41. The NBA legend was travelling with four people in his private helicopter when it crashed in Calabasas, 40 miles north-west of Los Angeles, on Sunday morning, according to multiple reports.
Five people are reported to have died in the accident. Vanessa Bryant, his wife, was not thought to be onboard. They have four children together – Gianna, Natalia and Bianca and six-month-old Capri.
A call for a downed helicopter went out at 10.01am, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said. Firefighters attended the scene and put out the flames.
Los Angeles County Fire could not confirm who was on board or who the helicopter belonged to. Bryant has long been known to travel around California by his personal helicopter.
“We received a call just before 10am this morning of an aircraft down in the Malibu area, right off of Las Vergenes, essentially Calabasas,” fire captain Tony Imbrenda told reporters at the scene. “Some folks were out here mountain biking this morning, they saw an aircraft in distress, they went down into the hillside. This was a helicopter, it’s been confirmed it was an S-76 Sikorsky helicopter and unfortunately there were no survivors.”
The cause of the crash is being investigated, officials confirmed.
Bryant is considered one of greatest basketball players of all time. He became a legend at Los Angeles Lakers, spending his entire 20-year career with the team, becoming a five-time NBA champion and twice being named finals MVP.
In 2018 he won an Oscar for best short animated film for Dear Basketball, a five-minute film based on a love letter to basketball which Bryant wrote in 2015