News helicopters collide, killing four. Who's to blame?
 

From CNN

From ABC15

From Channel 3

This is a tragic and horrible turn of events, indeed. My question to you TFPers is this:

Should the man being followed by the helicopters be liable for the four deaths? Why or why not?

I think he should, but only if one or both of the news teams were acting on behalf of the police. What are your thoughts?

I'm in the area so I've heard about this since it happened. In my opinion, I don't think he should be held liable. Although, it looks like that's probably what's going to happen. If he's held liable, I feel it could just set a precedent for all sorts of ridiculous lawsuits. I think it's strange that this accident happened at all. It makes me wonder what kind of navigation standards are in place to prevent accidents like this in the first place.

Well, it's certainly not the criminals fault that our culture demands live airborne coverage of every police chase. OJ Simpson is more responsible for that than he is.
What happened to those pilots and photographers is terrible, but the only reason that it happened is that every TV station wants to be the first to bring you the next episode of COPS.

fuck that. it's not HIS fault they couldn't fly a helicopter. If a cop who's chasing the guy spins out of control and dies, then that's different. but in no way should he be responsible for what happens in the air. I mean the fucking news was so greedy that they didn't follow the rules of the sky.

yes it was the guy's chase that made them go up but they didn't have to follow so closely.

if theres a parade and the same choppers are watching and crash, would the parade organizers be responsible for the death of the pilots and cameramen?

This happened a block from where I work. While I didn't see the accident, I saw the smoke coming up from the wrecks - it was horrible to watch, knowing that four talented and professional men just lost their lives.

I watch Channel 15 every morning while getting ready for work, and watching Craig Smith (one of the pilots), who usually has his dog Molly in the cockpit with him (not today, though) is always a highlight of the morning. His cheerfulness and sense of humor was infectious - I will miss him. He also played in a rock band that donated all of its earnings to charities. A truly good guy, who deserves a lot better than "they couldn't fly a helicopter."

I suppose we're all to blame - we're the idiots who stay glued to the television while they air these things.

The Phoenix police often solicit the help of news choppers to track criminals from the air that they otherwise could not track on land. In these instances the reporters act as an extension of the police, and often help catch criminals when police helicopters are otherwise occupied or incapable of getting to the scene in time.

If the news crews were doing the bidding of the Phoenix PD, then I believe it would be more than acceptable to prosecute the man. If the helicopters had been there solely to get a story, and had not been asked by the police to participate in the chase, then I do not think that the man should be held responsible.

I'm also interested to know how the whole thing happened (equipment malfunction? Just not paying attention?) Only time will tell.

It's just heartbreaking watching the newscasters choking up while they talk of their fellow reporters and cameramen. :(

I guess I'm in the minority on this one. The fleeing criminal is liable. I don't think that anyone can argue that he WASN't the proximate cause of the accident. Those two helicopters wouldn't have been jockeying for position if it weren't for him. It's the same as if he had left a gun out where a toddler could get it - he couldn't necessarily mean for someone to get hurt, but he's the one who set it in motion. It was irresponsible, and he deserves to be punished for it along with his other crimes. That said, the charge should be something along the lines of involuntary manslaughter or whatever the Arizona equivalent is. It certainly isn't first degree murder like OJ Simpson.

And yes, we the viewing public share some blame too for demanding that these folks put themselves in danger to satisfy our urges. However, we also share the blame when a boxer dies in the ring for the same reason.

I'm with you. The guy may not be criminally liable, but he is still civilly responsible. This isn't for the criminal courts, but for the civil courts.

I don't think the guy should be prosecuted for other people's mistakes.
The helicopter pilots probably took too many risks.

It doesn't sound like the criminal had any influence in what happened to the vicitims in the helicopters whatsoever.
Here's a hypothetical situation that could easily be real:
Pretend that I'm an international celebrity, and I just left a nightclub in my limo with some starlet. In the rush to get the first pictures, two drivers and two photographers crash their cars into each other. All four of them die in a flaming wreck. Am I responsible for them chasing me (and dying) just because I'm famous?

Are you people joking? Negligence requires a few things and, in most jurisdictions, one of which is that the injury is reasonably foreseeable to the person that they're trying to hold accountable. I think you'd have a very difficult time convincing an impartial jury (theoretically one who is not prejudiced against him simply because he's a criminal) that a news helicopter collision was proximately caused by the defendant's flight from police.

Furthermore, in most jurisdictions, an intervening negligent action severs liability for an injury arising out of an original negligent action. I'd say that one or both helicopter pilots clearly acted negligently (or perhaps even recklessly) which would prevent the fugitive from being held responsible.

While this is certainly a tragedy, it's really amazing to even think that the fugitive would have to answer for the mistakes of helicopter pilots who ought to know better. These people are, supposedly, experts operating equipment that they should know is dangerous. I feel very sorry for the victims and their families, but hold people responsible for their actions and their mistakes. The fugitive ran from police and by all means punish him to the full extent of the law. He didn't have a damn thing to do with how the helicopter pilots followed him or how good (or not, obviously) they are at their job.

I asked the same thing. If it was any other situation, they'd just be saying it's sad. but since the guy is committing 1 crime, might as well take him down for ALL of the crimes possible. I say fuck that. sure he fucked up but he didn't force the choppers to crash.

it's ludicrous to even think about charging this guy with the deaths of 4 people who willingly and voluntarily followed this chase along with that of the notion that there were two people who had control of these helicopters and failed to observe basic flight rules of avoiding other aircraft

he didn't, his actions put some culpability upon him.

as far as being famous, there isn't any laws one was breaking for being famous.

The law he broke was not "Failing to conduct air traffic control." They voluntarily chose to pursue him and they failed to do their job, i.e. safely fly a helicopter. Why is personal responsibility so faux pax? I'm not happy they died or something, but whichever pilot was at fault is the person responsible for the crash.

Fair enough, the paparazzi doesn't have any sort of 'civic duty'. But neither do news choppers, unless they really were asked to help by law enforcement and one of those pilots had an honest reason to be looking for the best shot of the action. If that's the case, then the guy should face some extra charges.
But if it turns out that this was just a tragic mistake, then the carjacker isn't to blame. Besides, he has enough to worry about with the rest of his charges.

Exactly. If two idiot photographers chase down a celebrity and die in the process, it's nobody's fault but their own. If an idiot steals a car and takes police on a dangerous chase through downtown Phoenix, and two police officers collide while trying to apprehend the suspect, you bet your ass he'd be at fault. If the police purposely solicit the helicopter pilots to assist them in the chase (since they can see many things from the air that the police cannot), and THEY collide while trying to help apprehend the suspect, how is it any different?

I'm not saying he should get Murder 1, but he should definitely be held partly responsible for their deaths.

In all actuality its both of the pilots faults.

Any pilot learns from day one to keep your head and eyes on the move and they should have stayed well away from each other, and should have always known where the pilot was.

Its your own ass if a helicopter flies right towards you and you arent paying attention enough to see it.

There is a speed, height, and angle in helicopter flying known as the "Deadmans curve". Once you pass this threshold it is difficult to maneuver (which may have attributed to this crash), not only that should your engine fail there is not enough space to the ground for you to safely crash-land.

It occurs to me that any one with good sense will not go past the well known and practiced rituals of a pilot in order to help anyone. Self preservation is paramount in the human genome.


As far as fault goes you can even go as far as blaming the news service...pressuring the pilots to get the best and clearest angle for camera shots, which would lead to habitual bad piloting.

However I am somewhat confused as to why they were there in the first place? Where were the Police Helo pilots, who are trained to "help" in that type of situation, and are usually kept whithin minutes notice.

Nobody denies that the pilots are at fault, since they did indeed collide, but they NEVER would've been there, assisting the police, if the criminal hadn't begun the chase in the first place. He is partly to blame, and I hope some sort of action is taken against him for their deaths.

personal responsibility or common sense should fall on the helicopter pilots. If they felt unsafe in helping the cops, they should have said something. It's not like there was a lack of choppers in the air that day!! just from that article, i know 3 or 4 were in the sky at the same time.

the dude on the ground is not responsible for the aircraft.

what if I crash my car and i get thrown out and fall and hang on the side of a cliff.. I called the cops for help so they send a chopper to see how to help me and they crash... was that my fault?

You weren't breaking a law. You didn't purposefully and knowingly fling yourself off a cliff. You were in distress.

This idiot put countless lives in danger during this pursuit, and now four people are dead who were just trying to help.

MOAB, they're just going to say "You didn't commit a crime, so it's different." He's a convenient scapegoat for a tragedy. Instead of, god forbid, we hold an "innocent' responsible for being an idiot and not knowing how to fly his helicopter, we blame the guy on the ground. Yes, in some global sense he did "cause" them to be there, but he had NOTHING to do with how they flew or their skill in flying helicopters. It's chaos theory applied to liability.

Edit: They weren't "just trying to help." They were part of a media frenzy fueled by a voyeuristic society that loves disaster porn. I think the police asking media helicopters to "help with the chase" is bad for really this exact reason. They're not people trained to follow criminals. They're people trained to follow a story. I cannot imagine how absolutely brain dead those two pilots must have been to allow themselves to get that close to one another and then to collide. They blew it, and blew it hard. Life does not owe you a perfectly safe experience. One or both of those pilots made serious errors today and if ANYONE should be held responsible, it is them. The families of the reporters should, by all means, sue the negligent pilot who caused the crash, because the blame lies very clearly on him.

I think many pilots will tell you that you are ultimately responsible for your aircraft. To make the criminal responsible is not the right thing to do. What if these same helicopters were trying to film a marathon and were jockeying to get a close look at the leader and crashed. Would the runner be liable?

That's not true. I'm all for personal responsibility.

I'm just saying that a civil court will find that the criminal is going to be liable for it.

Here's an example of there being a precedent for a criminal 2nd degree murder. This example is that the police officer was doing his duty so I can easily see a jury finding for a civil conviction.

Re: Jury Convicts Suspect In Highway Patrolman's Death

This seems more like vengeance, not justice.

I see a HUGE difference between a police officer chasing a suspect or rushing to get to the scene of a crime and a pair of helicopter pilots who failed to follow basic flight rules. Police officers or civilians in a street crash as a result of him zipping around I would be completely in favor of holding him responsible, as I see a very direct line of causation. Helicopter pilots are, theoretically, experts at what they do and they have THE ENTIRE SKY in which to avoid one another. I can imagine thousands of ways for crashes to happen because someone was recklessly tearing through a city on the streets. I can imagine basically no ways that helicopters could crash short of SERIOUS errors on behalf of the pilots.

You can see that and so can I.

I can also see some lawyer, using a legal precendent to convince a jury of a civil responsiblity. This is America where people can sue because Starbucks sells hot beverages that are hot when spilled upon oneself. :thumbsup:

Again, I don't see any criminal liabilty. But hey you can sue anyone for civil liability.

If you can bring a lawsuit to sue terrorist for being terrorists, well hell you can sue just about anyone.

Ah, well, yes, I guess that point is perfectly valid. I'm trying to wage my one-man crusade against America's litigious culture and I'll take any opportunity I can get.

The way I look at this, if a guy runs and is chased by police who then have an accident, then the guy may be liable for something because there's an implied expectation that the police should chase people who seem to be committing a crime.

So in that case you may try to argue that the driver is responsible morally for the police accident (although the law will take a very different view in the UK than it seems to in the states).

Consider the case of a guy being chased by police, who are being filmed by helicopters (not the plural).

Any argument that the choppers are helping the police is bogus on the part of one of them at least - if the tv news want to help the cops, get the police despatcher to assign you to jobs. The fact is that the choppers crashed because two were jockying for possition to get the best pictures.

In the UK the oweners and survivors of the chopper crash would be prosecuted for not following air traffic rules.

At the time that the crash took place the driver may not have known he was being chased by news crews, and unless a very high proportion of police chases in his town are chased by multiple news choppers he would not have had a resonable expectation that the news teams would have been placed in a situation by his actions that caused them to crash.

Also - as an aside - what happens to that liability if it turns out that the driver is not prosecuted for anything relating to the cause of the crash.

We'd have the sceario that a guy was chased by police, found not to have been guilty of anything and then prosecuted for some type of wrongful death because some journalists were stupid?

In the past, bad things happened by accident and people blamed God, or evil spirits, or supernatural forces, and burned offerings etc.

Nowadays, people feel a need to blame a person or organisation, and sue them for money, or get them locked up.

The rhetoric seems to be "I am put out, it canot just be random bad luck, therefore I will sue".

Word: Sometimes Things Just Happen Because People Are Dumb.

Flying two choppers at speed in the same airspace whilst looking at things on the ground rather than the air around you is like juggling carving knives with a bag on your head.

As much as I'd like to say he should be liable, there's just no way.

I'm not sure if you all read it, but it's clearly stated in the article: Once helicopters are cleared into an area, it's their responsibility to communicate and avoid other aircraft. They collided; it was miscommunication, machismo, or both. It's not the asshole in the car's fault that news stations put the bottom dollar so high up on a pedestal that pilots acted recklessly.

The pilots, on review of the tapes to see that they weren't communicating properly, should be civilly liable to the families of the cameramen. The only way I don't see this being their fault, is if they were cruising at close proximity and a sudden gust of wind threw one into the other. I doubt that could be. They put themselves at risk for ratings, and lost. Sucks, but not the chase guy's fault.

How about a little personal responsibility? The pilots are the ones who crashed into each other, goaded on by their networks and Joe Six Pack who demands police chases nightly on his TV.

I amazed anyone would blame the guy being pursued - he might be guilty of other crimes, but causng helicopters to crash into each other isn't one of them.

There is a HUGE difference between innocent by standers and police getting hurt while a crime is being committed AND people who purposely get in harms way to make a PROFIT getting hurt while a crime is being committed.

The suspect should be prosecuted for whatever they were chasing him for, the car-jacking, and evasion, but NOT for the deaths of the news casters.

Perhaps the pilots should be charged posthumously for encouraging the suspect to flee. Perhaps he was just grand-standing for the news stations? :rolleyes:


I'm with highthief: PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY.

Conviction will be tough if not impossible. You're right there. That doesn't mean that they won't charge him with it while they trying him for everything else.

Juries are stupid. It's a truism. Everything get played to the lowest common denominator in a courtroom, which is why it's at least worth the PR for the DA to charge the guy. Even if their later dismissed or dropped, the DA looks like he's gone after the criminal who's responsible for the action that caused the accident. He'd be charged if a police officer in the chase hit a pedestrian, so I don't see why it would be such a stretch to at least charge him.

I'd just like to respond to the people who argue that the police might've needed the helicopters. The article from BBC says they had helicopters from FIVE different news stations. The police don't need that many.

I just think police chases in America are some kind of urban Nascar, you try and get the best angles for the crashes. Maybe now they'll have cars following news helicopters too, just in case, so they can replay it 15 times in 3 differents kinds of slow-motion.

From a law standpoint, I'm fairly sure that the guy in the stolen car would have had to be capable of making a reasonable assumption that that crash could happen due directly to his actions to make the liability stick.

As far as my opinion, he should not be held liable. The fault of the crash lays in one or both of the helicopter pilots. As pilots, they are responsible for keeping their vehicle out of the way or other airborne vehicles.

That guy's only crime was stealing a car.

Holding suspects responsible for the accidents of reporters rushing to cover their arrest for the evening news. This should help further clog up the criminal and civil court dockets as well as create a lot of new work for lawyers. Imagine the frenzy to cover the next arrest of Paris or Lyndsay.

1) news teams do not act on behalf of the police. Ever. If they do, they shouldn't be in news anymore.

2) The man did not make the news team follow the police chase. He's not responsible.

The immediate ones responsible are the pilots. They should be flying the helicopter first, taking directions from the photogs second.

The REAL responsibility lies with the idiot news directors who get a hardon every time there's a damn police chase. Repeat with me folks, POLICE CHASES ARE NOT NEWS. They're fun video. They're good fodder for Cops and Worlds Wildest Police Videos, but they do not belong on the news. Asinine masturbatory "look what we can show you with our Super-HD DopplerCopter Chopper 11" should not be the mission of a newsroom.

I guess echoing previous statements, I'd have to say that I also believe the (accused) criminal shouldn't be held responsible. Since people have been using the example of police cars having an accident while chasing a suspect I guess I'll use that one too. There is an implicit assumption that if you are being chased by the cops they may be forced to try to apprehend you by driving dangerously themselves. If the cops should happen to have an accident, then, while perhaps unfair and random, it seems socially just that the criminal should be held accountable in that case.

On the other hand, I wouldn't assume that a helicopter has to incur considerable risk while chasing a car. In fact, I don't understand why you would need two helicopters to chase one car, or however many there were. So in this case I wouldn't consider the criminal at fault.

The choppers were from 2 different stations. We don't generally share video with each other unless there's a pool arrangement worked out beforehand.