[vertex]

The Channel 15 and Channel 3 news helicopters collided over Indian School park about 15 minutes ago. It doesn't look good for either one...

No further word yet on the high speed chase.

The guy's original truck was on its' last legs (stop sticks) when he bailed and took another vehicle. All of the sudden, everyone's attention turned to two huge balls of flame hitting the ground. F*cked up stuff....

edit...

Both stations are reporting that their helicopters had a pilot and a cameraman aboard.

[vertex]

Channel 15 just ran the audio of the the their pilot communicating with Channel 3's. You can hear him say "...3...on top of you....right on top of you.... Jesus..."

[PHX31]

Crazy, crazy shit... There has to be some more film and audio of this. It's amazing they were right above central phoenix and then luckily didn't crash in a neighborhood or worse, they went down right in the park.

News channel 3's lady (patty kirkpatrick) is basically crying on air.

I'm at 7th Ave and Thomas and didn't hear or see anything.

[CANUC]

Apparently they were following a police pursuit. One wittness claims there were nearly 6 helicopters in the air at the same time...can you say drastic flight policy change.

[PHX602]

I wonder if Bruce Haffner was one of the pilots?

[vertex]

^^^I think it was...

Witnesses at the George and Dragon across the street are confirming that the channel 3 helicopter seemed to 'nudge' channel 15 while banking to follow the pursuit.

[vertex]

Apparently they were following a police pursuit. One wittness claims there were nearly 6 helicopters in the air at the same time...can you say drastic flight policy change.

5 news, 1 police

These things happen all the time, gotta wonder if it was just a matter of time.

[PHX31]

i think i heard on channel 3 that it wasn't Bruce Haffner. they didn't disclose names, but they mentioned they wanted to get Bruce out there to talk about it (or something... whatever they said, it made me think he wasn't one of them).

[vertex]

Channel 10 is showing footage of the collision...

[blm3034L!fe]

That is tragic, I wonder if L.A. is laughing at Phoenix thinkning "Ha rookies" leave the high speed chopper chases to us!!! ;)

This is not to offend anyone, don't take it personal...

[HX_Guy]

http://www.azcentral.com/homepage_index/pics/0727crash2.jpg

From AZCentral.com

[PHX602]

^Holy shit.

blm3034L!fe- I know LA is the car chase capital but Phoenix is probably right up there with the most car chases out of any US city.

[PHX31]

http://www.azcentral.com/homepage_index/pics/0727crash2.jpg

From AZCentral.com


Holy shite... There has to be footage of nearly the whole thing, considering it was right in midtown phoenix during the day during a car chase. People on the ground may like to watch/film just the helicopters covering the event.

[vertex]

i think i heard on channel 3 that it wasn't Bruce Haffner. they didn't disclose names, but they mentioned they wanted to get Bruce out there to talk about it (or something... whatever they said, it made me think he wasn't one of them).

Channel 3 confirms 2 of the 3 dead are Scott Bowerbank and Jim Cox. Waiting to here the 3rd name.

ABC15 confirms that both Craig Smith and photographer Rick Krolak were killed.

[SLC Projects]

We just got word here in Salt Lake City.


KSL website.

4 people killed.
http://www.ksl.com/?nid=157&sid=1545322

[boisecynic]

HX_guy's pic from AZCentral had this url:

http://www.azcentral.com/homepage_index/pics/0727crash2.jpg

I messed around and changed the 2 to a 1 and found the following, I reuploaded to tinypic just in case they decide to move it away from public eyes.

http://i10.tinypic.com/68m6xwi.jpg

[HooverDam]

Whoa crazy.....like has been said, its a good thing they crashed into a park and not a neighborhood or tower.

[CoVol]

Wow! This is devastating. I know that news choppers and their teams tend to be the pride of news stations and communities. To lose four people and two copters in one incident is awful. My condolences to all involved. :(

[vertex]

I can't get to the Fox10 Phoenix website. They are the ones with the unedited footage. But the LATimes website has a copy of Channel 10's unedited video clip.

LA Times mirror link (http://video.latimes.com/global/video/flash/flashvideoplayer.asp?playerName=miniplayer.swf&clipId=1621601&autoStart=false&mute=false)

[HooverDam]

For those out of towners reading this thread, here is a map of Phoenix showing where it happened (the red square is downtown, the green is mid/up town, and the park is labeled):

http://img442.imageshack.us/img442/3176/3fc45b45891385ec9f963f1yn5.jpg

[DowntownDweller]

Good thing Central isn't back in session yet. Coulda been a bunch of crunched students.

[Don B.]

This happened right across the street from my law school. In fact, some of the debris landed in the parking lot.

--don

[PHX_PD]

This is definitely a tragic situation, but it’s almost a miracle that only 4 people got killed. They couldn’t have picked a better spot to crash.

Apparently they were following a police pursuit. One wittness claims there were nearly 6 helicopters in the air at the same time...can you say drastic flight policy change.


I remember the chief getting really pissed off a few months ago because media helicopters chose to keep following a suspect vehicle even though all the units (including the air unit if I remember correctly) were ordered to terminate their pursuit. He wanted to implement something that would force the media to back off, but there really isn’t any regulatory power outside of the FAA, whose main concern is keeping the flight paths clear. You can chalk this one up to incredibly bad luck on top of pilot error, and just hope something like it never happens again. I’m sure all the news stations will be much more cautious in their approach to these types of situations from now on.

[Azndragon837]

Wow. My condolences to the family and friends of Channel 3 and 15. I know two people who work for Channel 3, and this is just one awful tragedy.

I was working at the City of Scottsdale when I heard the news, and went to a room with a TV to watch all the news stations. It was really sad to see 15 and 3 covering the story as it happened.

-Andrew

[boisecynic]

6 in the air at once, all covering the pursuit? FAA will have to divy out assigned altitudes (500' increments?) for news choppers.

[soonermeteor]

The footage from one of the copters that has been posted around the net is really disturbing. :(

I know one was from the ABC affiliate but I couldn't find the other one? I checked NBC, CBS, CW, and FOX and it wasn't their station.

[HooverDam]

Channel 3 is a non affiliated independent station.

[xymox]

The irony in this is that Channel 3 used to be the ABC affiliate - (in early 90s?) after a bunch of stations hopped affiliations. Channel 15 (who was fox) became ABC, Channel 10 (who was CBS) became FOX and Channel 5 (who was independent?) became CBS. Channel 3 was left holding the short straw.

The video out there from the channel 15 chopper is very chilling - Fox 10 just showed video immediately after the mid air collision - and showed them falling to the ground and exploding.

Has anyone seen the footage from the Channel 3 chopper at the time of the incident?

[Derek]

How tragic. :(

[Denver Bear]

not to sound cold BUT, maybe news stations should report news and stay away from sensationalism. Then this horrific event wouldn't have happened.

[Upward]

not to sound cold BUT, maybe news stations should report news and stay away from sensationalism. Then this horrific event wouldn't have happened.

That's a good point. Hopefully they will learn from this tragedy. Sometimes it takes something awful like this to get people to change their ways.

[vertex]

The irony in this is that Channel 3 used to be the ABC affiliate - (in early 90s?) after a bunch of stations hopped affiliations. Channel 15 (who was fox) became ABC, Channel 10 (who was CBS) became FOX and Channel 5 (who was independent?) became CBS. Channel 3 was left holding the short straw.

Another irony about this is the fact that the channel 15 cameraman Rick Krolak worked for channel 3 before switching to 15.

The video out there from the channel 15 chopper is very chilling - Fox 10 just showed video immediately after the mid air collision - and showed them falling to the ground and exploding.

Has anyone seen the footage from the Channel 3 chopper at the time of the incident?

I was surprised to see the live feed from channel 15's helicopter make it to the ABC evening news. Channel 15 viewers did see the crash live, but the station has refused to replay the footage since.

Channel 3's live feed simply went blank...

Both stations used a short delay, which is standard procedure, in case anything too violent or inappropriate occurs during the chase. If there was any footage of the crash from Channel 3's vantage point, it never made it to air. The same can't be said for Channel 15's footage.

[PHX602]

What a bad day for Phoenix. That police officer who was shot on the west side last night has died.