07-28-2007, 07:47 PM | #41 (permalink) |
Psycho
|
What I was confused about was that it was implied that the police asked for the help of news helicopters. Did they ask for more than one? I don't think it's reasonable for that to have happened. I have no idea how the cops delegate authority to the media, but it seems more likely to me that if the police asked for help it was because there already were two news helicopters out there to begin with.
|
07-28-2007, 10:04 PM | #43 (permalink) |
Delusional... but in a funny way
Location: deeee-TROIT!!!
|
After reading all of these posts I can totally see where most of you are coming from, and I've changed my position on the matter.
If the pilots were not actually policemen (even if they were asked by the police to tail the carjacker), then they were essentially just bystanders who crashed because they weren't paying attention to their surroundings. There's no way a charge could stick in court for that reason. I was chatting with my father (a lawyer) about this, and we came to the conclusion that only way the carjacker could possibly be held liable in these deaths is if one or more people aboard the choppers had been deputized prior to the incident (which I doubt they were). That would've officially made them law enforcement, which would've meant that they were performing their civic duty instead of just getting a story. However you look at it, it was a very tragic event. I'm just glad that they didn't land on a building or something.
__________________
"I'm sorry, all I heard was blah blah blah, I'm a dirty tramp." |
07-28-2007, 10:47 PM | #44 (permalink) |
<3 TFP
Location: 17TLH2445607250
|
I wonder if there is precedence, though, even for police choppers. Airspace is significantly easier to control that roadways. Two pilots should NEVER, under any circumstances, be close enough to collide. Two choppers will naturally push away from each other slightly anyhow. I'm not sure HOW this happened, but I can't see the guy being chased as being responsible in any way.
__________________
The prospect of achieving a peace agreement with the extremist group of MILF is almost impossible... -- Emmanuel Pinol, Governor of Cotobato My Homepage |
07-29-2007, 01:16 AM | #45 (permalink) | |
Fledgling Dead Head
Location: Clarkson U.
|
Quote:
|
|
07-29-2007, 02:12 AM | #46 (permalink) |
Getting it.
Super Moderator
Location: Lion City
|
If civil law in the US is as harsh as this... cripes.
I think it's ridiculous that anyone would think the pursued is responsible for this... Personal responsibility is the key word here.
__________________
"My hands are on fire. Hands are on fire. Ain't got no more time for all you charlatans and liars." - Old Man Luedecke |
07-29-2007, 02:31 AM | #47 (permalink) | ||
The Reforms
Location: Rarely, if ever, here or there, but always in transition
|
Why must responsibility and culpability be issued at all for an accident?
(assuredly, those two choppers were not meant to collide, nor did any one entity solely contribute to the occurrence) Quote:
Quote:
No. Nature. No. Antagonism.
__________________
As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world (that is the myth of the Atomic Age) as in being able to remake ourselves. —Mohandas K. Gandhi |
||
07-29-2007, 08:59 AM | #48 (permalink) | |
Psycho
|
Quote:
|
|
07-29-2007, 11:44 AM | #49 (permalink) | |
Too Awesome for Aardvarks
Location: Angloland
|
Quote:
My thoughts exactly!
__________________
Office hours have changed. Please call during office hours for more information. |
|
07-29-2007, 10:34 PM | #50 (permalink) |
Insane
Location: Orlando, Florida
|
I think this crash amounts to pilot error, and the fleeing felon isn't responsible for it civilly or criminally, in my opinion. I agree with the other posters who say that it's a case of the pilots of the choppers who are responsible for their own deaths. Maybe their bosses if they are pressing them to take more risks in doing this.
Perhaps there should be a different division of labor in the craft, is it possible that the pilot's job should simply be to fly the chopper, while another person in the chopper control the camera? You know, put the camera on a mount that allows it's aim to be adjusted independently of the direction that the chopper is pointed. If it were set up that way, perhaps the pilot could focus on making sure he doesn't collide with other pilots. (the above paraagraph is based on some of the CNN coverage I've seen of the crash) |
07-30-2007, 05:28 AM | #51 (permalink) | |
Tone.
|
Quote:
Generally a photographer runs the gyrocam - it has a little joystick to control it. In cheaper choppers the photographer opens the side door and shoots video out of it with a regular news camera. The pilot almost never shoots video, but he's often expected to function as a reporter. It sounds like in at least one of the crashed choppers, the pilot was live on the air talking to the anchors -- IMO this should never happen - the pilot should be concentrating on flying the bird. Unfortunately many news helicopters can only carry two people because they're already so heavy with all the equipment they have. I know of one chopper in Iowa that had only enough capacity for the pilot (who acted as the reporter) and a VERY lightweight photographer - -they used to have to send the smallest intern they had for that to meet the weight restrictions. The general problem is that news helicopters are being misused. They should be used to get crews quickly to a story that's a long way away, or to provide aerials of a scene where the cops aren't letting people on the ground get close enough to shoot video. They should not be used in police chases. Period. And if they are, they should not get reports live from the pilot. There is absolutely no reason to broadcast a police chase, especially live. |
|
07-30-2007, 08:03 AM | #52 (permalink) |
Metal and Rock 4 Life
Location: Phoenix
|
Nobody ever "mans up" and takes blame for whats their own anymore.
Even the thought of blaming the criminal that is running from the cops is just passing vengeance onto him, and not properly charging him with what he should be. The news organizations should be held responsible for putting peoples lives at risk by flying their air craft in a unsafe manor. Police do not need to chase every criminal, it often just leads to someone else being hurt physically and/or financially that the state will NEVER pay for. Again, because they do not want to take blame for their own actions. Its always easy to just blame the bad guy for all events that go bad, but its rarely required.
__________________
You bore me.... next. |
07-30-2007, 06:58 PM | #53 (permalink) | |
Psycho
Location: Grand Rapids
|
shakran wrote:
Quote:
In The Big three markets, The pilot flies the thing and there is a separate reporter and the videographer.... It would not surprise me to find that due to this catastrophy, the Big City setup will filter to smaller markets, and that some stations may get out of the chopper business alltogether due to the added costs.
__________________
And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom. Anais Nin I Wish You Well. |
|
07-30-2007, 07:29 PM | #54 (permalink) | |
Tone.
|
Quote:
What's this? Do we have a stealth TV newsman running around here? I hope you're right. I'm hearing rumblings already that police chases have been suspended by several stations across the country as a result of this crash. |
|
07-30-2007, 07:42 PM | #55 (permalink) |
Psycho
Location: Grand Rapids
|
No jes somebody who has followed the business for years... A groupie if you will..
__________________
And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom. Anais Nin I Wish You Well. |
07-31-2007, 04:55 AM | #56 (permalink) | |
Junkie
Location: Right here
|
Quote:
__________________
"The theory of a free press is that truth will emerge from free discussion, not that it will be presented perfectly and instantly in any one account." -- Walter Lippmann "You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists." -- Abbie Hoffman |
|
07-31-2007, 06:26 AM | #57 (permalink) |
Psycho
Location: Grand Rapids
|
My sense is that the Phoenix Police official who suggested that additional charges be filed in regards to the mid-air collision may have been politically motivated....
__________________
And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom. Anais Nin I Wish You Well. |
07-31-2007, 09:11 AM | #58 (permalink) | |
Junkie
|
Quote:
|
|
07-31-2007, 12:36 PM | #59 (permalink) |
Tilted
Location: Orange County (the annoying one)
|
It is *possible* that he could get hit with the felony murder law, whereby if someone's death can be directly attributed to your actions while you are in the process of committing a felony, you are charged for their murder.
However, again, the responsibility for operating the choppers rested on the pilots themselves, and since a chopper crash isn't (previously... I guess now it is) a foreseeable consequence of a ground-driven police chase, it would be massively difficult to convict this guy for anything relating to this crash. Any damage or crashing that occurred on the streets during his chase, however, is all on him. |
07-31-2007, 01:24 PM | #61 (permalink) |
Super Moderator
Location: essex ma
|
any logic that'd connect the guy being chased to the cause of the helicopter crash seems piss-poor. it takes the notion of responsibility for consequences--which would be the rationale for criminal law--and just runs with it in a kind of ridiculous way. if you are going to go this route, you might as well blame the cops for giving chase, or radio traffic for making that chase de facto public knowledge, or the news director of the tv stations (as shakran indicated above). you could even hold the tv news audience to account for it. hell, why not hold the mayor to account as well: after all, if the city wasnt there, this wouldnt have happened.
or you could see this as an accident. sheesh.
__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite |
08-01-2007, 06:26 AM | #64 (permalink) | |
Psycho
Location: Grand Rapids
|
A little Perspective from someone in the business in Phoenix, taken from an e-mail I received:
Quote:
__________________
And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom. Anais Nin I Wish You Well. |
|
08-01-2007, 08:02 PM | #65 (permalink) | |
Crazy
|
Quote:
If they're not acting on behalf of the police, and they crash, it's not the guy-who's-running's fault. He could in no way figured out a way to force the two helicopters (that he probably didn't even know about) to crash. If they were in some extension of the police, then consider this situation. A person is running from two police officers on foot. Both officers have their guns drawn. One police officer accidently shoots and kills the other officer. That's not the running man's fault, that's incompetance. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for sticking as many charges as possible onto criminals. Such as when a person mugs someone with a heart defect and gives them a heart attack - I'd be up for charging them with murder. But this situation was caused by pilot error, nothing more. |
|
08-01-2007, 08:38 PM | #66 (permalink) | |
Invisible
Location: tentative, at best
|
Quote:
How about because of the fact that if this asswipe didn't decide to steal a truck that day, 4 men would be alive right now? I can understand that he probably won't be charged with felony murder; I can even see how a civil case would need a lot of help. But what happened to morality and responsibility? The car thief set in motion a series of events that eventually resulted in these men's deaths. I can't understand how so many of you are giving him a pass on this! He's a goddamn thief, and because of that, people died. If he doesn't steal a truck, four people live. Period. ________ OK - rant over_____________ As far as the actual cause of the crash, I imagine we'll find that, like almost all aviation accidents, it wasn't one big thing that caused it; rather a tragic series of small events that led to it. There's a lot of distractions up there - in addition to the actual flying, which takes a hell of a lot of concentration in and of itself, the pilot is listening to air traffic control, the other pilots, the police scanner, the photographer, and his producer - all talking at once. That's why you've got to be a damn good pilot to even attempt what they all make look easy. RIP and Godspeed Craig, Rick, Scott, and Jim.
__________________
If you want to avoid 95% of internet spelling errors: "If your ridiculous pants are too loose, you're definitely going to lose them. Tell your two loser friends over there that they're going to lose theirs, too." It won't hurt your fashion sense, either. |
|
08-01-2007, 09:04 PM | #67 (permalink) | |
... a sort of licensed troubleshooter.
|
Quote:
... therefore the butterfly is responsible for $2b in damages? Do we sue the butterfly for negligent homicide for someone who passed away in the hurricane? No. Just, no. The fault for this collision rests mainly on the shoulders of inattentive pilots. If anyone else, maybe the people who insist on watching sensationalist news, but even that is a stretch. Let's try another one. Let's say you're a botanist. You have a beautiful garden, but you come across an ant line and start following it. You're paying so much attention to the ants that you fail to notice the fence and you bump your head. Is this the fault of the ants? Absolutely not. |
|
08-02-2007, 02:43 AM | #68 (permalink) | |
Junkie
Location: Ontario, Canada
|
Quote:
The pilots are the ones you should be outraged against - one or both of them fucked up and killed a couple of other people due to incompetence, error or other.
__________________
Si vis pacem parabellum. |
|
08-02-2007, 04:43 AM | #69 (permalink) | |
Tone.
|
Quote:
And while it is the pilot's fault, I still say it's also largely the news organizations' fault. At least one of the pilots was live on the air when the crash happened. In other words the newsroom expected him to be a pilot and a reporter, which IMO is, while common, not safe. |
|
Tags |
blame, collide, helicopters, killing, news |
|
|