Four die as TV news copters crash while filming a police car chase

IN THE age of rolling television news, it is a tragedy that has been waiting to happen.

Two helicopters competing to broadcast live footage of a police car chase yesterday collided and crashed to the ground in flames. Two pilots and two cameramen were killed in the accident, in Phoenix, Arizona.

It is thought to be the first time two news helicopters have crashed into each other while covering a story.

The aircraft, from rival stations KNXV and KTVK, were following police as they chased a lorry which had failed to stop for a routine traffic check.

Eyewitness Mary Lewis was stuck in traffic nearby when the crash happened. She said: "I looked up and I saw this boom and I saw one of the helicopters coming down.

"I said, 'Oh, my God' - I went to the crash scene to help, but there was nothing I could do. There was nothing there. Just burned-out stuff."

The dead were last night named as KNXV pilot and reporter Craig Smith and cameraman Rick Krolak. The KTVK dead were pilot Scott Bowerbank and cameraman Jim Cox.

Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Ian Gregor said recordings of air traffic control instructions were being reviewed to check if the helicopters had been in contact with ground controllers at the time of the crash.

He said: "Typically, air traffic controllers clear helicopters into an area where they can cover a chase like this. Once in the area, the pilots themselves are responsible for keeping themselves separated from other aircraft."

The collision happened as the two helicopters broadcast live coverage of police pursuing the lorry. The stricken craft came down on the lawn outside a disused church.

KNXV and KTVK later confirmed that both two-man crews had died in the crash. Cameras aboard both aircraft were pointed at the ground at the time, so viewers did not witness the accident.

But viewers did see pictures from both helicopters as they began to break up and then spin around before the stations switched back to studio coverage.

Other aerial news crews in the area began transmitting coverage of the helicopter crash within a minute of the accident happening.

Just before the collision, the driver of the lorry, which was being chased by several police cars, had jumped out of the vehicle and hijacked another truck.

He had been driving erratically, hit several cars and mounted the pavement before police blew out his tyres, forcing him to come to a halt.

Barbara Cochran, president of the Radio-Television News Directors' Association, said her organisation did not track deaths among airborne reporting teams, but she added she "could not recall" another example of two aircraft colliding while out on a job.

Ms Cochran said: "The news directors of these stations are members of our association and our heart really goes out to them in a situation like this. These pilots are very professional. They combine the skills of pilots and skills of journalists. It's something that's very, very sad."

The use of helicopters for newsgathering in Britain is not routine, but it is very common in cities across the United States.

The best-known use of such footage in recent times is that of the police pursuit of the actor and former American football star OJ Simpson.

He led 18 police cars on a 75-mile chase across the Los Angeles area in his white Ford Bronco after the murder of his wife, Nicole, and her friend, Ronald Goldman, at the family home in 1994.