Officials Recover All Nine Bodies At Kobe Bryant Helicopter Crash Site

Officials have recovered the bodies of all nine victims of the tragic helicopter accident that claimed the life of Lakers basketball legend Kobe Bryant.

“On Sunday afternoon, personnel from the department’s Special Operations Response Team (SORT) recovered three bodies from the helicopter wreckage located in the 4200 block of Las Virgenes Road in Calabasas,” the Los Angeles County Department of Medical Examiner-Coroner told RadarOnline.com in a statement on Tuesday, January 28.

“The next day, the search continued for the other six helicopter occupants. Soon after, their bodies were located, removed from the crash site and transported to the department’s Forensic Science Center,” officials noted in the statement.

According to the Corner’s Office, investigators are actively working on identifying the crash victims and “body examinations are in progress.”

As RadarOnline.com previously reported, Bryant, 41, his daughter, Gianna, 13, died when foggy weather conditions caused the helicopter they were flying in to crash on a Calabasas hillside on Sunday, January 26. 

The other victims who lost their lives in the collision included the chopper’s pilot, Ara Zobayana, college baseball coach John Altobelli, his wife, Keri, and daughter Alyssa, Sarah and Payton Chester (a mother and daughter who lived in Orange County), and Christina Mauser, who worked as a basketball coach at Harbor Day School in Corona del Mar.

Celebrities, including Ellen DeGeneres, 62, are mourning Bryant’s sudden death.

“That’s what I want to talk about: Life is short and it’s fragile. And we don’t know how many birthdays we have,” DeGeneres said on the January 28 episode of her talk show. “We don’t have to have a birthday to celebrate. Just celebrate life.”