LOS ANGELES — The pilot in the foggy-weather helicopter crash that killed Kobe Bryant was well-acquainted with the skies over Los Angeles and accustomed to flying celebrities.

Ara Zobayan, 50, had spent thousands of hours ferrying passengers through one of the nation’s busiest air spaces and training students how to fly a helicopter. Friends and colleagues described him as skilled, cool and collected, the very qualities you want in a pilot.

His decision to proceed in deteriorating visibility, though, has experts and fellow pilots wondering if he flew beyond the boundaries of good judgment and whether pressure to get his superstar client where he wanted to go played a role in the crash.

Jerry Kidrick, a retired Army colonel who flew helicopters in Iraq and now teaches at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott, Arizona, said there can be pressure to fly VIPs despite poor conditions, a situation he experienced when flying military brass in bad weather.

“The perceived pressure is, ‘Man, if I don’t go, they’re going to find somebody who will fly this thing,’” Kidrick said.

Bryant, his 13-year-old daughter Gianna and six other passengers were killed along with the pilot Sunday morning when the chartered Sikorsky S-76B plowed into a cloud-shrouded hillside in Calabasas.