WABC-TV NewsChopper7 Pilot Dies In Freak Accident
NEW YORK, NY (October 8, 2007) - The pilot of WABC-TV NewsCopter7 was killed in a freak accident in Midtown Manhattan on Sunday night, not in an aviation incident but when a taxi cab jumped a curb outside a popular E. 40th Street and Third Ave. restaurant and hit him and pinned him to a tree.
WABC-TV says Captain Paul Smith, 60, died instantly. His wife, Donna Smith, 55, was seriously injured and is Bellevue Hospital. An unidentified seven-year-old child, who is a relative, was also injured, The New York Times reports. The couple had attended a birthday dinner with relatives and friends from New York, Florida, and Oklahoma and the group had just come out of Dock's restaurant and were saying goodbye and waiting for a cab when the driver of another cab lost control and came up on the sidewalk, WABC-TV's Eyewitness News reported.
During his career at WABC-TV, Smith had flown NewsCopter7 showing the world pictures of the 9/11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, aerial photographs of WNBC-TV Channel 4's news helicopter spinning out of control and crashing on a Brooklyn apartment building rooftop in 2004, and a few weeks ago the tragic steam pipe explosion in Midtown. Smith won an 2005 Emmy Award for his coverage of the Channel 4 helicopter crash.
He was a veteran pilot of two tours of duty in Vietnam, had been NewsCopter7's pilot for more than a decade, and was married to Donna Smith for almost thirty years. The couple have two adult sons, Cory Smith, a New York City police officer, and Kale Smith.
NPPA Region 2 director Todd Maisel of the New York Daily News says Smith was very active in news helicopter safety issues in the New York area.
WABC-TV Eyewitness news reports the driver of the cab, Mohammed Chowdhury, 23, had a valid taxi license but had been a taxi driver for only six weeks. Witnesses told police the cab was speeding. Chowdhury told police another cut him off and the accident could not have been avoided. Police have confiscated the taxi and the driver's cell phone, to determine if he was on the phone at the time of the accident, WABC-TV reports.
The New York Times reports that witnesses told police the taxi was traveling fast, hit a sidewalk planter and then hit the Smiths and the boy.
No charges have been filed against the taxi driver at this time.
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