Vanessa Bryant, families of helicopter crash victims reach settlement in wrongful-death lawsuit

• Vanessa Bryant settled a lawsuit with the helicopter company in charge of Kobe Bryant's fatal crash.
• Terms of the settlement – between the family victims, the company, and the pilot's estate – have not been disclosed.
• A lawsuit against Los Angeles police, for sharing photos of the crash and its victims, remains ongoing.
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Vanessa Bryant and other families have settled a wrongful-death lawsuit with the company involved in the helicopter crash that killed NBA icon Kobe Bryant, his daughter Gianna, and seven others last year.

Terms of the settlement were not disclosed in a settlement agreement notice filed to court Tuesday, and the settlement is awaiting approval by the judge overseeing the case.

Kobe Bryant, 13-year-old Gianna, and six others were being flown to a youth basketball tournament at Bryant's Mamba Sports Academy when their helicopter crashed in California's San Fernando Valley on January 26, 2020.

The crash killed everyone onboard the helicopter.

Months later, Vanessa Bryant sued the company, Island Express Helicopters, and its owner, alleging it didn't properly train the machine's pilot, Ara Zobayan, and arguing that it should not have allowed the helicopter to fly in foggy weather. She also sued Zobayan's estate, saying he had shown negligence by flying the helicopter in bad weather conditions.

The lawsuit was joined by the family members of the others who were killed in the crash, who also agreed to the confidential settlement conditions, court records show.

Island Express Helicopters had blamed the crash on the Federal Aviation Administration, whose air traffic controllers permitted the pilot to fly. It filed a countersuit against the agency, which is not a party to the settlement agreement.

In a separate ongoing lawsuit, Vanessa Bryant also sued the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department and other Los Angeles government agencies after deputies took and shared photos of the crash and its victims. That lawsuit remains ongoing.