Phoenix News Chopper Crash Anniversary: "Lives Not Lost In Vain"
By Donald R. Winslow
© 2009 News Photographer magazine
PHOENIX, AZ (July 27, 2009) – The lawyer representing the families of Jim Cox and Scott Bowerbank, two of the four journalists killed two years ago today on July 27, 2007, when their hovering Channel 3 news helicopter was struck from behind by Channel 15’s helicopter while they both covered a police chase on the Phoenix streets below, today told a press conference that their lives "were not lost in vain, because of the important issues we're talking about now."
In announcing the settlement of the Cox and Bowerbank's wrongful death suit over the crash, attorney Patrick J. McGroder said what the families want to bring into public discussion now is not so much the news of the suit’s settlement, or who was at fault, but to focus on the important steps that news helicopter operators need to take now “try to avoid the lingering tragedy, by insuring that this won’t happen again and that the FAA will take some action.”
McGroder said it's time for federal authorities to adopt regulations that put some restrictions on aviation reporting.
The National Press Photographers Association's executive director, Jim Straight, took part in the press conference to re-state NPPA’s opposition – for safety reasons – to on-air reporting being done live by pilots who are also flying the aircraft.
"This incident was a tragic loss of life, compounded by the fact that it was preventable," Straight said. "When considering what we as an industry need to do next, I hope we will never forget photojournalist Jim Cox, pilot Scott Bowerbank, photojournalist Rick Krolak and pilot Craig Smith [Channel 15's helicopter crew]. But what do we, as an industry, do next?," Straight asked before listing NPPA's main safety recommendations.
"NPPA strongly recommends three actions," Straight told the press conference. "First, immediately end the practice of using pilots to report while flying. It was not long ago that the pilot of a news helicopter did one thing and one thing only: and that was pilot the aircraft. Accompanying the pilot were two journalists. One did the reporting and the other created the images. It is time to return to that practice.
"Second, increase the amount of training, experience, and safety improvements required to operate a news helicopter operation.
"And third, the industry needs to reassess how, why, and when it uses a helicopter to cover news. Can coverage be pooled to reduce the number of aircraft in the air during an event? Is the minimum safe distance currently employed by news helicopters enough? And are stations really considering what is worthy of air coverage and what could just as easily be covered by alternative, safer means?," Straight said.
"Why cover these garbage chases at all?" the father of photojournalist Cox, who is a former U.S. Air Force pilot, asked at today's press conference.
"As a pilot, I know the confusion that can take place in the cockpit, monitoring multiple radio frequencies and communicating with the ground and with the station," Alan Cox of Austin, TX, said as he called for the "elimination" of the combination pilot/reporter job position. Cox also recommended that the risk of midair collisions can be reduced by news stations agreeing to pool their coverage from a single helicopter over a news scene.
McGroder said, “The real policy issue here is, are we able to really fractionalize a pilot’s attention by requiring him to also be an on-air personality and to be, essentially, a celebrity reporter, while his piloting skills are becoming a secondary feature?”
McGroder represented the Cox and Bowerbank families in a wrongful death suit against U.S. Helicopters, KNXV-TV, E.W. Scripps, and the estate of Craig Smith (Channel 15’s pilot). The families reached an agreement on the suit for an undisclosed amount in June, McGroder said. According to The Arizona Republic, Smith's survivors have now filed a counter suit.
McGroder agreed with NPPA that the issues the industry and FAA need to address are the safety question about pilots who are performing on-air reporting while flying; the potential for “pooling” helicopter reporting in large metropolitan areas; and adopting recommendations that the NTSB and the victim’s families made following the crash (such as proximity warning devices, painting rotor upper surfaces with bright colors and patterns for visibility, and more training and communication).
At today's press conference, McGroder released computer-generated animations of the midair crash that were based on the National Transportation Safety Board's investigation findings, upon FAA radar tracking data, and on eyewitness accounts.
The recreated scenes shows Channel 3's helicopter piloted by Bowerbank to be sitting a hover and then being struck by Channel 15's helicopter, piloted by Smith, who flew right into them, striking Channel 3's aircraft from behind and to the right. In this setting, there could be no way for Bowerbank or Cox to have seen Channel 15's helicopter approaching, while Channel 3's helicopter would have been visible front and center in Smith's cockpit window. Smith, who was reporting live on the air at the time of the crash, was giving a blow-by-blow description of the chase as it unfolded on the ground below, and of the suspect getting out of vehicle and running toward another vehicle seconds before the helicopters impacted.
When Channel 15's helicopter approached, the first contact as rotor-to-rotor as the blades tangled and shattered. The collision broke the tail boom off Channel 3's aircraft and its fuselage turned nose upwards and then rotated upside-down before falling to earth. Channel 15's helicopter traveled several hundred feet forward after the midair crash before plummeting nose-first to the ground. Both helicopters crashed within 30 feet of each other in the city's Steele Indian School Park, where they exploded and burned, killing the four journalists.
News helicopters in Phoenix were operating under an agreement letter between the television stations and the FAA that when covering news in an area each pilot would be responsible for seeing and avoiding each other within that aerial news zone. The NTSB's final accident report said that both pilots had failed to see and avoid each other, which caused the tragedy, while the civil wrongful death suit the Cox and Bowerbank families settled found Smith to be at fault.
Today Channel 3's pilot and photojournalist Bruce Haffer posted a video tribute to his friend and former coworker and flight instructor, Scott Bowerbank, and their flying days together on Channel 3's Web site.
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