PHOENIX — Two news helicopters covering a police chase on live television collided and crashed Friday, killing all four people on board in a plunge that viewers saw as a jumble of spinning, broken images.
Both helicopters went down in a park in central Phoenix and caught fire. No one on the ground was hurt.
TV viewers did not actually witness the accident because cameras aboard both aircraft were pointed at the ground. But they saw video from one of the helicopters break up and begin to spin before the station abruptly switched to the studio.
Television station KNXV Channel 15 operated one of the choppers. The other was from KTVK Channel 3.
Killed on the KTVK helicopter were pilot Scott Bowerbank and photographer Jim Cox. Bowerbank had been with the station for 12 years and Cox had been there for 10 years.
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On board the KNXV aircraft were reporter-pilot Craig Smith and photographer Rick Krolak, the station reported. Smith had been with the station for two years. Krolak worked at the station for more than nine years.
Smith, the Channel 15 pilot, was broadcasting the blow-by-blow of the chase when he suddenly said "oh jeez," a video of his final moments broadcast by the station shows. Sounds like metal crashing could be heard immediately afterwards, then the video signal ended.
The helicopters were covering the police pursuit of a work truck. Just before the collision, the driver had jumped out of the disabled flatbed pickup and carjacked another truck.
The man was taken into custody by a SWAT team after barricading himself inside a house, said Phoenix police spokesman Sgt. Joel Tranter.
"I believe you will want to talk to investigators, but I think he will be held responsible for any of the deaths from this tragedy," Phoenix police Chief Jack Harris told reporters..
News helicopters from other television stations were also in the area.
"This is a very sad day, and our thoughts and prayers are with the families involved," KNXV General Manager Janice Todd said.
At Channel 3, anchor Patti Kirkpatrick fought emotions as she covered the developing news story.
"These are folks that we knew very well and we care about them and they're gone. So, it's just heartbreaking for all of us here at 3 TV, because we know these folks," she said.
KTVK President and General Manager Mark Higgins noted that despite the competition among TV stations, the reporters and photographers know each other well. "Our news team is devastated by the loss of these four professionals," Higgins said.
A Federal Aviation Administration investigator was on the scene Friday, and National Transportation Safety Board investigators were expected to arrive today, Tranter said.
The transportation safety board will take the lead in the federal investigation of the crash, said Ian Gregor, spokesman for the FAA in Los Angeles. Both agencies will conduct independent investigations that will include inspecting the wreckage and interviewing the other helicopter pilots and witnesses on the ground.
The two choppers came down on the grass lawn in front of a boarded-up church at Steele Indian School Park, site of an old Indian school.
Witness Mary Lewis said she was stuck in traffic with her four grandsons and was watching the helicopters, turned to talk to the children and then saw a fireball in the air when she looked again.
"I looked up and I see this 'boom,' and I see one of the helicopters coming down, and I said 'Oh, my God,' " Lewis said.
Rick Gotchie, a Phoenix air-conditioning contractor, was working in a building on the edge of the park and noticed the helicopters circling the area. He said they began circling closer as he continued watching, and one appeared to get too close to another.
"I kept saying, 'Go lower, go lower,' but he didn't," Gotchie said. "It was like a vacuum. They just got sucked into each other and they both exploded, and pieces were flying everywhere. I was running over there as they were falling and they were both on fire and exploding."
Tranter said the wreckages of the helicopters came to rest about 25 to 30 yards from each other in the center of the park. Gotchie said he ran to the site, but, "No one got out."
FAA spokesman Gregor said the pilots of the five news helicopters and one police chopper over the chase were not talking to air-traffic controllers at the time, which is normal.
"Typically, air-traffic controllers clear helicopters into an area where they can cover a chase like this," Gregor said. "Once they are in the area, the pilots themselves are responsible for keeping themselves separated from other aircraft."
Pilots generally use a dedicated radio frequency to talk to one another and maintain their positions, he said.
On StarNet: See more images from Friday's deadly helicopter crash at azstarnet.com/slideshow.
