The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) says the 2007 midair collision involving two electronic news gathering (ENG) helicopters in Phoenix, AZ was both pilots’ failure to ‘see and avoid’ the other rotorcraft.
But contributing to the fatal midair collision was the pilots’ need to perform both reporting and flying (visual tracking) duties to support their station’s news gathering operation, the Safety Board said in its probable cause determination.
Also contributing to the accident was the lack of formal procedures for Phoenix- area ENG pilots to follow regarding the conduct of these operations.
The two TV helicopters collided July 27, 2007 while covering a police pursuit. At the time of the accident, three other news gathering helicopters, from other local stations, were also covering the event, and a police helicopter was operating below the news helicopters.
NTSB investigators said the pilots drifted too close together because they were focused on watching the police car chase and under pressure to report the event for their television stations. The pilot/reporters were listening to police radios, coordinating coverage with news producers, talking with photographers on board, talking to other helicopter pilots by radio and trying to visually keep track of other helicopters nearby.
Two Eurocopter AS350B2s were involved, one (N613TV) operated by NTVK-TV (Channel 3) and the other (N215TV) owned by U.S. Helicopters and leased to KNXV-TV, Channel 15). Each helicopter had a pilot- reporter onboard and four of the five ENG helicopters had a photographer on board videotaping the event. All four occupants in the two helicopters that collided were killed, two pilot/reporters and two photographers.
ENG pilots and law enforcement helicopter pilots communicate their position and intentions with one another using a dedicated air-to-air frequency. However, the accident pilots’ attention was focused on the changing situation on the ground and their broadcast.
The Safety Board’s investigation revealed that the last time the two pilots coordinated their helicopters’ positions or intentions to each other was about four minutes before the collision. Additionally, when the accident occurred, the pilots were reporting the unfolding events on the ground, which diverted their attention away from other tasks such as maintaining their helicopter’s stated position and altitude and scanning the area for potential collision hazards.
“A pilot’s first and primary responsibility is to operate the aircraft in a safe manner,” said NTSB Acting Chairman Mark V. Rosenker. “Assigning someone else, other than the flying pilot, to perform the reporting duties in ENG operations and improved technology to assist pilots in distinguishing between the shape of airborne objects operating below them and the surrounding terrain will prevent accidents like this from occurring again,” he added.
The Safety Board made ten recommendations to the Federal Aviation Administration, including one that would require ENG helicopter operators to assign reporting responsibilities to someone other than the flying pilot “unless it can be determined that the pilot’s workload remains manageable under all conditions.”
Other recommendations to the FAA included requiring the installation of crash-resistant recording systems, incorporating pertinent information into an advisory circular of best practice guidelines for ENG operations, installing a crash-resistant flight recorder system, hosting annual ENG helicopter conferences to discuss operational and safety issues, developing letters of agreement for aircraft to specify minimum horizontal and vertical separation requirements, and requiring ENG operators to use high- visibility blade paint schemes and improved anti-collision (strobe) lights on their aircraft.
The NTSB said the Phoenix news chopper mid-air is the only one to date in the U.S., but Safety Board Member Kitty Higgins says there have been at least 18 other incidents in which two ENG helicopters nearly collided in midair.