any chance seeing the corresponding vid from the other news chopper? you know, 2 sides to every story and all that.

whut a bunch of dumfuks.

That's my biggest fear, VFR rules of separation or not. Ugh.

:-)

Historic moments in a media distraction

At the side of the page are links to other video from the incident.

Pokemon, please don't get sentimental & bleed your sympathies all over the place. It was only four deaths, after all.

Tool.

mhb23re

I understand that in LA you can sign on to a popular service that rings your cellphone whenever a high-speed chase is being televised live.

The ultimate reality TV show,I guess.

When I lived in Phoenix, one way to tell if there was going to be a traffic jam was to look for news chopers. If you saw more than one over the same spot, there was big trouble. Check the TV and there'd be some major prang or fire every time.

Normally they kept a large separation between them, like half a mile or more, and orbited the scene at good distance and altitude. They have long lenses and image stabilization units, they fly conservatively and cooperatively.

The copper chopper was the one to get in close and low. Phoenix PD runs Hughes NOTAR choppers, no tail rotor to get stuck in a palm tree or a telephone line.

This business of chasing cars has been done safely for many years. Luke Air Force Base used to lose an F-16 every couple of months, compare that to the news chopper fleet that has -years- between problems. You'll notice they crashed on a golf course, I expect that was more good pilot skill than luck.

Still, that many aircraft in the same air space makes for increased danger. Hopefully it will be decided that filling daytime TV air time with car chase footage is not worth losing lives and multi-million dollar aircraft.

Large separation of a 1/2 mile? Anything less than 1 1/2 makes my buttocks clinch up. I know pilots, I know airplanes, and I know what can happen.

"Pokemon, please don't get sentimental & bleed your sympathies all over the place. It was only four deaths, after all."
---------------------------------
I'm afraid I can't get too weepy over a bunch of journalists getting smeared either.

These GHOULS are at evey car accident, fire, plane crash and murder, sticking their noses into the blood stains. It finally caught up to them and bit them in the ass hard. TOUGH.

I have no sympathy for them. When you use the tragedies of others to further your own fame then you take your risks.

Yeah, John, all those famous tv news helicopter pilots really piss me off too.

And just wait some greedy trial lawyer will sue the police becuase of some stupid idea

So? The point stands.

If you want to fly in a dangerous manner just so you can get in the best position to rubber neck a police chase then don't be surprised if it eventually backfires on you.

I honestly don't care. It's not like they were flying dangerously to pluck someone off the roof of a burning building. It's not like they were flying in a dangerous manner to rescue sailors off a sinking ship.

No, they were simply trying to compete for the best shot of a stupid car chase. What an idiotic reason to risk your life. Doing it just to get a thrill, further your own ego, and get a stupid story that people will forget about in 10 minutes.

If you want to get all holier than thou and pretend to be outraged at me, fine. I am not bothered a bit.

Pokemon was right. They ARE dumfuks.

I seem to remember a collision between a media helicopter and a tourist helicopter near Niagra Falls in the 80s. One pilot failed to maintain assigned altitude.

John

I tend to hold journalists in somewhat low esteem, too. However, these people were killed just doing their jobs; I don't think it was "thrillseeking" or "ego-tripping". Hey! If you or I were journalists, then this could have been either of us, too. My reluctance to mock these people in their fate isn't anything to do with appearing "holier than thou", it's more of a personal taste thing.

People die doing their jobs every day, some are to the benefit of mankind ("rescuing sailors off a sinking ship"), some aren't. Fortunately, not everybody has the opportunity to have scorn heaped upon their deaths by the likes of you or pokemon, cackling and hunched over your keyboards. Lucky them.

But please feel free to let us know your own personal and work particulars, John. That way, if you die making a mistake at work (innocent or careless), your next-of-kin may have the pleasure of digesting all of our hearty, superior gibes at your misfortune here on SDA.

As for "pretending" to be outraged at you, get real. You don't really inspire rage; "indifference" or "mild distaste" would be closer to the mark.

mhb23re at gmail d0t calm

mhb said, "That way, if you die making a mistake at work . . . your next-of-kin may have the pleasure . . ."

Perhaps your right. (I'm not in a job that is in any way heroic but is quite dangerous)

Maybe there would be others hunched over keyboards being insensitive.

And they would be there, quite likely because some useless journalist came dashing up with a camera getting the best shot of all the splattered blood.

I DO feel for these people's families. I'm not a monster or made of stone. But that sympathy for their next of kin doesn't extend to excusing these "news crews" from fault in acting in a dangerous manner for such a shallow and superficial reason.

Suppose it was only one pilot's fault. One was flying responsibly and the other was flying like an ass. That means four people are dead because one or more people on one of the helicopters were acting in an irresponsible manner which I have previously described.

Stories like live police chases are not news stories. They are entertainment disguised as news.

This was a mid air collision. One or more of them disregarded the safety of everybody else just so they could get the most thrilling view of something that was really none of their business.

If they were seriously trying to warn people of a dangerous traffic situation they could have done so very completely without engaging in a game of airborne "chicken" simply to compete for the best view.

"Indifference", "mild distate" ok, whatever, I don't know you. I don't care. that's about all I've got to say on this matter.

Yukon, the air space in Sun Valley is pretty crowded. Any night you want you can climb South Mountain and see 10 airliners lined up in a row on approach to Sky Harbour. They've got five or six smaller airports in the area too, with lots of private aircraft tooling around. Plus Luke AFB.

I'm just an interested observer. Usually the news choppers would show up and take static positions, hovering in a circle, then take turns flying nearer the scene. Looked pretty controlled to me, but then I'm not a pilot.

Air collisions only happen when one or both machines are out of position, so somebody screwed up, simple. Sad, but simple.

The Phoenix police chief says the suspect in the car chase could face charges related to the fatal crash. "

uhuh.

more nonsense.

if the fleeing suspect is going to be charged related to the chopper crash, then what means does he have to exert influence and control over THEIR actions in filming him?

really, if he has to bear a portion of blame then it stands to reason he should be permitted to take some action or measure to minimize that burden of guilt.

or is this just kneejerkism at play? food for the lawyers? impotent police?

what if someone on the ground in the school yard had been killed? would this police chief be threatening to drag the station owners into jail and court and thence back to jail for precipitating the whole disaster?

what bleeding heart nonsense.

and besides, why dont these dipwads just use small pilotless drones for this stuff with camera(s) mounted on the belly. they could even get in closer to the pleasure of the rubberneckers.

The worse air disasater happened on the CANARY ISLAND when a PAN AM and KLM 747s collided all becuase the pilot of one airliner was wanting to take off too soon

As if this weekend hasn't been bad enough-- now full-time performer Jim LeRoy has gone west. Jim, the last surviving "master of disaster", died today at Dayton. You'll probably remember him from flying with the X-team/Masters of Disaster when Jimmy Franklin and Bobby Younkin were killed at Moose Jaw in '05. My prayers go out to Jim's family and the families of all aviators who have died this weekend.

Jim LeRoy flew a bright yellow "Bulldog" Pitts biplane and was one hell of a pilot. He will be sorely missed.

Blue Skies Jim.

Everyone loves helicopter views of car chases, it's like a good hunt. Chasing any sort of vehicle along city streets however presents unnecessary risks to innocent bystanders. Police should put a stop to car chases early by using their firearms on the driver as soon as they start to flee, that would be the responsible course of action.

Look for the bird with the victory markings under his wing AAAHHHH SQUAWK SQUAWK GOTS TWO OF THEMS SQUAWK SQUAWK SQUAWK

...Princess Diana in reverse...

First, it is very sad that people lost their lives.

Second, if you can believe it CTV Newsnet had coverage of this on Sunday. A story ran about the air show accident. Talking at great length of all the danger and all of the people on the ground that have been killed needleessly (only in Europe for a very long time). In North American pilots are not allowed to fly over the crowd. But this story went on and on about how dangerous air shows are. Then the next story was about the news helicopters colliding. Nothing but love for one of the people who died. No reasoning about why it happened, or could have been avoided.

If you ever wondered about media thinking and believing they are above everyone, you should have seen those back to back stories. DISGUSTING.

Four good men lost their lives because unimaginative television news directors over the years have come to prize live video collected with expensive toys over stories characterized by greater subtlety and significance.

You know, maybe I'm just a pessimist, but looking at the contents of blog comments [and no, this isn't specifically about SDA], both roughly on "my side" and "the other side" and the "just plain stupid side", I can't help but believe that the media have gotten that way because it's what people want.

Most people seem, when given subtlety and significance, to reject it as uninteresting, too hard to understand, or not exciting enough (see Goldstein's lengthy essays on textual analysis and semiotics) - or as "just wrong because I disagree with that side".

I increasingly think that the majority of people, regardless of their politics, don't want subtlety, significance, or critical analysis.

(Which is, in all honesty, fine, so long as they don't pretend they do, or act like they've got it when they don't.)

Okay, definitely I'm jaded, if not pessimistic.