Update: Dallas TV station KDFW’s helicopter made an emergency landing this morning, causing only minor injuries to a traffic reporter, according to the station.
Phoenix Collision Raises Questions About Helicopter Coverage
After Friday’s news helicopter crash in Phoenix, newsrooms will be asking whether covering car chases and other breaking news is worth the risk. The skies are crowded. Often, chopper pilots must, in effect, be their own air traffic controllers, keeping an eye on the swarm of other choppers around them.
Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Ian Gregor said air traffic controllers typically give helicopter pilots the go-ahead to enter airspace, but that’s where tower communication ends. From there, pilots use a dedicated radio frequency to exchange information and maintain separation. The Arizona Republic reports:
Daniel Schwarzbach, a Houston police pilot and president of the Airborne Law Enforcement Association, said coverage of police pursuits and other moving news targets presents the greatest danger. “You’re trying to stay on top of the action and news helicopters are all jockeying for the best shot,” Schwarzbach said. “Everybody’s trying to get in a very small airspace . . . It becomes pretty hairy.”
Schwarzbach and Matthew Zuccaro, president of the Helicopter Association International, agreed that such accidents usually occur when a pilot fails to follow the basic flight rule: “See and avoid.”
That analysis seems to fit early evidence in Friday’s accident.
Channel 15 (KNXV) pilot Craig Smith could be heard seconds before the collision asking what became of the Channel 3 (KTVK) aircraft, then declaring, “Oh, geez. Three, I’m right over the top of you.”
Schwarzbach said radio chatter about air location is normal among news chopper pilots, who have blind spots above, below and behind them.
“You lose ’em for a second and you’re asking, ‘Where are you? I can’t see you. . . . OK, you got me. I got you.’
“That’s not uncommon when you’re working and trying to keep track of four or five other aircraft.”
Are Helicopers Safe?
According to statistics released at the 2005 International Helicopter Safety Symposium, helicopters have an accident rate that is about 30 percent higher than the rate of other general-aviation aircraft. Of course, that includes everything from tour helicopters and medical choppers to news helicopters like the ones that crashed.
Here is a law firm that focuses on aviation crashes and even scrapes Web sites for news about accidents.
What are the most common causes of chopper crashes?
Should TV Stations Be Chasing the Chase?
In Los Angeles, the chief of police asked TV stations to stop covering these kinds of chases live because, he said, the live coverage rewards people seeking fame. It is also worth asking whether a pilot should be doing anything other than operating the aircraft. Is it too much to ask a pilot to do anything but fly a chopper? Some report and fly. Some also have the ability to control a camera while flying. If distracted driving is hazardous on the ground, wouldn’t it be even more dangerous in the air? And why don’t TV stations use pools instead of every station sending a helicopter into the sky for essentially the same shot?
“Free” Credit Reports that Are Not Free
The story continues:
Consumers Union’s Web Watch, run by the same folks who publish Consumer Reports magazine, recently commissioned a study of the “free” credit report Web sites. Robert Mayer, a professor at the University of Utah and author of the study, came away with the opinion that most of the sites are “sleazy.”
“You get the feeling that they said, ‘We know we have to give these things away but we’re going to do everything we can not to do that,” Mayer said.
Though the sites charge various amounts for their products, they liberally use the word “free” to advertise their wares. Some examples:
- TheFreeCreditReportSource.com
- FreebieCreditReport.com
- FreeCreditReportsInstantly.com
- Free3BureauCreditReport.com
Mayer focused on the 24 sites that come up most often on search engines, and painstakingly scoured them. He found the word “free” a whopping 312 times — an average of about 13 times on each page.
How Many Kids in Your City Live in Poverty?
How many kids in your state have health insurance? What percentage of children in your community are the children of immigrants? All of this and tons more is now available online through the new Annie E. Casey Foundation Kids Count survey.
If you can’t find story ideas in these data, you are not looking.
Editor’s Note: Al’s Morning Meeting is a compendium of ideas, edited story excerpts and other materials from a variety of Web sites, as well as original concepts and analysis. When the information comes directly from another source, it will be attributed and a link will be provided whenever possible. The column is fact-checked, but depends on the accuracy and integrity of the original sources cited. Errors and inaccuracies found will be corrected.
