Rescuers found and evacuated the bodies of the nine people who were on board the helicopter carrying basketball player Kobe Bryant, which crashed Sunday near Los Angeles.
Three bodies had already been removed from the debris the same day of the crash and the remaining six were located the next day, said the services of the county medical examiner in a statement. All the remains were transported to the center of forensic medicine, where experts will in particular try to identify them.
"Investigators are currently working to identify the deceased" and the services of the Los Angeles County coroner will communicate the identities "as soon as they have been verified and the families notified," the text concludes.
The list of victims is already known
Even if it was not officially disclosed, the list of victims of the accident was already known. Besides Kobe Bryant, 41, an NBA star retired since 2016 and his daughter Gianna, 13, the other victims are a baseball coach, John Altobelli, his wife Keri and their daughter Alyssa who played basketball in the same club as Gianna, Christina Mauser, assistant coach of the two teenage girls' basketball team, Sarah and Payton Chester, a mother and daughter, and pilot Ara Zobayan.
The helicopter, a Sikorsky S-76B, in which the nine victims were on board, crashed shortly before 10 a.m. Sunday, when heavy fog enveloped the region. He had taken off from Newport Beach (about 60 km south of Los Angeles), where Bryant resided, in the direction of the Mamba Academy, a sports center owned by the star located 135 km away.
VIDEO. Death of Kobe Bryant: who were the other eight passengers in the helicopter
"A terrible accident scene"
Authorities and experts seem for the moment to favor an accidental maneuver linked to the fog rather than possible mechanical problems. The aircraft did not have a black box because it was not necessary on this type of helicopter.
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Investigators at the US agency responsible for transportation safety spoke of "a truly terrible accident scene" where the debris is scattered over nearly 200 meters.
Given the affliction that hit the Lakers, Bryant's lifelong club, the NBA announced the postponement of the derby initially scheduled for Tuesday at the Staples Center, which was to oppose the Clippers, the other club in Los Angeles. A very rare decision in the NBA, which canceled a match between the Celtics and Indiana in 2013 after the Boston Marathon bombing, and others in 1963 after the assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy.