Before Kobe Bryant Crash, Helicopter Company Had Clashed Over Safety

LOS ANGELES -- In the years before the helicopter crash that killed the basketball legend Kobe Bryant and eight other people, the company operating the aircraft, Island Express Helicopters, had a series of disputes over its safety practices, according to federal accident reports and a former federal safety inspector.The tensions first came to the attention of federal investigators in 2008, when a fatal accident involving an Island Express helicopter revealed disagreements that had been playing o