The world continues to mourn the loss of Kobe Bryant, his daughter Gianna and seven more victims after a fatal helicopter crash took their lives. To show our respect for the victims, their names will be recognized at the end of the article. 

The passing of Kobe Bryant has been shocking to not only his loved ones but to fans around the nation, including students at Anaheim HS. The day after the accident, students wore their jerseys around campus with respect to The Black Mamba and Gigi (official nicknames of Kobe and Gianna Bryant). Recognized as the Lakers legend, Bryant joined the NBA right after high school, later winning 5 NBA championships. His daughter Gianna was an aspiring basketball player who would regularly accompany her father to basketball games. They were inseparable; in fact, he firmly believed that she would take on his legacy in the court. 

Leading up to the incident, Kobe, and Gianna, along with her fellow basketball players, their parents, and the pilot, were on the way to the Mamba Academy in Thousand Oaks, California, for basketball practice. The crash occurred in Calabasas, California, amid extreme foggy conditions that interrupted the pilot’s visual readings resulting in the chopper to slam into the hillside.

According to NYMAG, the pilot Ara Zobayan, broke flight rules when he decided to climb to a higher altitude because of the intense cloud layer. Zobayan had to go through “500 verticle white-clouds’’ to reach his comfortable flying height. However, flying into those clouds is illegal because of the lack of “visual references,” which was the reason for the crash. NYMAG commented, “ Without visual reference to the ground, a pilot becomes disoriented, loses track of which way is up, and augurs into the ground.”  

It’s been weeks since the sudden passing of basketball legend, Kobe Bryant, and students at Anaheim HS are still mourning. From Lakers gear to merchandise, students have paid tribute in their own way, expressing the immense sadness that has resulted in this accident. Unfortunately, it’s irreversible, and all that’s remaining is to remember the lives of the ones that were lost. However, Lakers fans have made it prominent that “Legends will always live on.” 

Our respect to all the victims, may they rest in peace. 

Kobe and Gianna Bryant; Christina Mauser; Payton and Sarah Chester; John, Keri, and Alyssa Altobelli; Ara Zobayan.