Chopper 4 down in NYC

[Bob Chilcoat]

Last night during the 6:00 news, I was watching the WABC news when Shannon
Sohn, the Newscopter 7 reporter suddenly came on, very shaken, and said that
Chopper 4, her counterpart on WNBC, had just gone down seconds earlier. She
was particularly upset because her husband is the morning reporter in that
same aircraft, and she used some of the report to let police know the
address of the building the wreckage was on top of. Good job. A bit later
they showed film of the copter spinning out of control, hitting the roof of
one building, turning over and then crashing onto an adjacent roof.
Fortunately everyone, pilot, reporter and a trainee pilot, got out without
life-threatening injuries. There was one typical gaff later that evening on
another channel were the reporter described how the pilot "managed to set it
down" on a roof. Pretty good flying all right, since he was completely out
of control, and was upside down when he hit the second roof!

http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/news/wabc_050504_copter4.html

--
Bob (Chief Pilot, White Knuckle Airways)

I don't have to like Bush and Cheney (Or Kerry, for that matter) to love
America

[Ben Jackson]

In article >,
Bob Chilcoat > wrote:
>they showed film of the copter spinning out of control, hitting the roof of
>one building, turning over and then crashing onto an adjacent roof.

They were fantastically lucky. They happened to arrive on the upper
roof in a level attitude with a small amount of forward speed, which was
fairly gently absorbed by the parapet before they slid off and fell to
the lower roof, doing a single roll during the fall so that they landed
on the skids again giving the airframe and the seats an opportunity to
absorb the blow the way they were designed to. If they had fallen between
the buildings or landed sideways or upside down I doubt anyone would have
walked away.

--
Ben Jackson
>
http://www.ben.com/

[gatt]

My wife videotaped "24" and we caught that in a preview of the ten o'clock
news but I didn't get to see the story.

Thanks for the info. We had an incident a couple years back where they were
showing a National Guard helicopter rescuing hikers on Mt. Hood, and the
helicopter crashed on live television. I'm glad to hear that the Chopper
4 occupants made it; it certainly didn't look survivable from what I saw.

-c

"Bob Chilcoat" > wrote in message
...
> Last night during the 6:00 news, I was watching the WABC news when Shannon
> Sohn, the Newscopter 7 reporter suddenly came on, very shaken, and said
that
> Chopper 4, her counterpart on WNBC, had just gone down seconds earlier.
She
> was particularly upset because her husband is the morning reporter in that
> same aircraft, and she used some of the report to let police know the
> address of the building the wreckage was on top of. Good job. A bit
later
> they showed film of the copter spinning out of control, hitting the roof
of
> one building, turning over and then crashing onto an adjacent roof.
> Fortunately everyone, pilot, reporter and a trainee pilot, got out without
> life-threatening injuries. There was one typical gaff later that evening
on
> another channel were the reporter described how the pilot "managed to set
it
> down" on a roof. Pretty good flying all right, since he was completely
out
> of control, and was upside down when he hit the second roof!
>
> http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/news/wabc_050504_copter4.html
>
> --
> Bob (Chief Pilot, White Knuckle Airways)
>
> I don't have to like Bush and Cheney (Or Kerry, for that matter) to love
> America
>
>

[Guy Elden Jr.]

Chopper 4 has certainly had its share of accidents, according to the news
reports I've been reading today... once around '98, and a couple back in '86
(one of which was fatal for the reporter).

--
Guy Elden Jr.


"Bob Chilcoat" > wrote in message
...
> Last night during the 6:00 news, I was watching the WABC news when Shannon
> Sohn, the Newscopter 7 reporter suddenly came on, very shaken, and said
that
> Chopper 4, her counterpart on WNBC, had just gone down seconds earlier.
She
> was particularly upset because her husband is the morning reporter in that
> same aircraft, and she used some of the report to let police know the
> address of the building the wreckage was on top of. Good job. A bit
later
> they showed film of the copter spinning out of control, hitting the roof
of
> one building, turning over and then crashing onto an adjacent roof.
> Fortunately everyone, pilot, reporter and a trainee pilot, got out without
> life-threatening injuries. There was one typical gaff later that evening
on
> another channel were the reporter described how the pilot "managed to set
it
> down" on a roof. Pretty good flying all right, since he was completely
out
> of control, and was upside down when he hit the second roof!
>
> http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/news/wabc_050504_copter4.html
>
> --
> Bob (Chief Pilot, White Knuckle Airways)
>
> I don't have to like Bush and Cheney (Or Kerry, for that matter) to love
> America
>
>

[G.R. Patterson III]

"Guy Elden Jr." wrote:
>
> Chopper 4 has certainly had its share of accidents, according to the news
> reports I've been reading today... once around '98, and a couple back in '86
> (one of which was fatal for the reporter).

Seems like a pretty good accident record for a chopper that's in the air most of the
time.

George Patterson
If you don't tell lies, you never have to remember what you said.