Rick Dickert On The Tragedy In Chatsworth

The John Phillips Show

The John Phillips Show dedicates a somber episode to discussing the tragic helicopter crash in Chatsworth that killed NBC4 reporter Eliana M

Key takeaways

• Helicopter crashes in urban areas are particularly dangerous due to limited space for emergency landings like auto-rotation.
• The continuous warning horn heard before the crash likely indicated low rotor speed, a critical mechanical issue.

Main topics

• Helicopter crash in Chatsworth
• Aviation safety and maintenance protocols

Notable quotes

"There's no wings in a helicopter. You have the blades."

"That continuous warning horn that we did hear in that video just prior to that tragic incident was likely due to low rotor speed."

Conclusion

The episode serves as a poignant reminder of the dangers faced by news

Transcript preview

Speaker 7 (0:00) Some might label us right wing. We say clip our wings Speaker 8 (0:05) and just call us right. It's the John Phillips Show. Speaker 1 (0:13) And we continue at 2.05 in the afternoon on the John Phillips Show, broadcasting live from Vancouver, British Columbia today. Mr. Randy Wang's in Culver City. Speaker 3 (0:23) Had any poutine yet? Speaker 1 (0:25) No, although I did have. Speaker 1 (0:29) What's that famous donut company here? Speaker 3 (0:32) Tim Hortons. Speaker 1 (0:33) Yes, I did have a Tim Hortons donut this morning, and it was delicious. Speaker 3 (0:37) I do love me some Canadian food. Hey, we're broadcasting live on the radio on 790k ABC in Southern California, 810k SFO in the Bay Area, but we're also broadcasting worldwide, including in Vancouver, Canada, Canada at johnnydontlike.com. That's Johnny with a Y, johnnydontlike.com. Get in on the YouTube channel, play around in the chat room, try to make us laugh when we're saying something serious. It's Speaker 1 (1:03) a Speaker 3 (1:03) good old time. johnnydontlike.com. Speaker 1 (1:07) 800-222-5222 is the telephone number, 1-800-222-5222. Well, as I mentioned at the top of the show, last night a tragedy played out on live television when an NBC4 news helicopter crashed in Chatsworth. The helicopter was called News Chopper 4. It was flying for NBC4. the NBC affiliate in Los Angeles, and Telemundo 52. The crew was covering a bad crash between a city bus and an SUV. That bus crash had already killed people. Around 7 o'clock at night, the helicopter went down between buildings and caught fire. Three people died. Two were on the helicopter, reporter Eliana Moreno and pilot George Marcineau. They had flown together for about three years as a team. A man on the ground, Eddie Gutierrez Mejia, also died. Other people on the ground were hurt as well. Witnesses said the helicopter looked like it was swaying before it fell. Officials don't know why it crashed yet, but the NTSB and the FAA are investigating. NBC4, which was really difficult to watch last night, Because they had to report on their own helicopter crashing. These are their co-workers. Anchors told viewers they had lost contact with their team, then confirmed the crash. Colleen Williams was the anchor on the air at the time that had to deliver the news. She is a pro's pro and never cracks. But last night was, when I say it was difficult to watch, that is an understatement. Speaker 1 (2:58) Joining us to talk about this is a man who knows a lot about reporting from the sky. He is a certified broadcast meteorologist and aviation weather observer. He spent 20 years airborne in that helicopter reporting for KTTV. You can follow him on X at Rick Dickard WX. Rick Dickard, welcome. Speaker 2 (3:22) Thank you, John. First, my sincere condolences to the family, the friends, the NBC4 colleagues of Eliana and George and the young man that was killed on the ground yesterday evening. It was awful to watch. I haven't flown in six years, but I did spend 20 years airborne covering a variety of events over Los Angeles, the greater Southern California area, in addition to weather. And I flew in that exact same time. type of helicopter, a Eurocopter, an Aero Speciale or an A-Star 350 B-2. It's a single turboshaft engine helicopter. Speaker 1 (4:03) You know, you talk to people who are commercial airline pilots, people that fly the Airbus, they fly the Boeing planes, they fly the Embraers. And I ask them sometimes about the helicopters. I have a cousin who was an Apache helicopter pilot in the military who's now flying the jet for commercial airliners. And a lot of the guys who are on the jets are afraid to fly on the helicopters or. are unlicensed to fly on helicopters. It's a different type rating that you need to be able to pilot those aircrafts because they say if there's something that goes wrong with a jet, you can glide down. If the engine goes out or there's something catastrophic that goes wrong in a helicopter, you don't have those allowances. Speaker 2 (4:51) That's correct. And again, I was a reporter just like Eliana. I'm not a licensed pilot, but I did spend many hours and I did learn a little bit about the aircraft, of course, and how it operated. And it is a difficult aircraft to fly. And what we heard on board that aircraft as they were covering all the news helicopters were covering that horrific accident in the valley yesterday involving. the metro bus and that SUV that killed two people, that crash alone killed two people, is that continuous warning horn that went on. And I remember that horn each and every day as we took off because we would check to make sure that horn, at least my pilot would, to make sure that that horn was operational because that is a warning horn. And that continuous warning horn that we did hear in that video just prior to that tragic incident was likely due to low rotor speed. Again, that is going to be for the NTSB to evaluate that, but that was likely the case. And you mentioned it, there's no wings in a helicopter. You have the blades. And what a pilot will do is try to attempt a maneuver called an auto rotation. And that is used to generate upward flowing air into the blades in the event that the helicopter's engine is no longer providing. the power and that will essentially hopefully glide the helicopter down at a slow rate for a safe landing. However, that's very difficult. You need altitude. Altitude is your friend because you need to get that upward blowing air into the blades. And then you need an open rural area to land the helicopter safely. And as we know, Southern California doesn't have a lot of real estate like that anymore. If you're lucky enough to be close. to an open field, a high school, a large park, then those spaces are available. But those large spaces would provide a successful auto rotation if all of those parameters are in play. We don't know what was going on. There wasn't a whole lot of time. And again, that's just what the video showed with that continuous warning horn, which again, I remember that daily, John, every morning. at a Van Nuys airport, and that's where the helicopter that I flew in for about 20 years was based. We checked that horn and made sure that it was operational. Speaker 1 (7:16) The public is probably most familiar with helicopter crashes in the context of what happened to former Laker Kobe Bryant when he and his daughter and other people were on one of those helicopter aircrafts that went down and they all perished in that crash. When Kobe Bryant was killed in that helicopter accident, weather played a distinct role in what happened there. Yesterday, there was no weather. So I guess the working assumption is it had to be something catastrophic in terms of mechanics. Speaker 6 (7:55) That's right. I mean, the weather was ideal over the valley yesterday evening. There was no issues with reduced visibility or low ceiling. I'm an aviation weather observer. The morning that Kobe's helicopter crashed in the hills near the San Fernando Valley in the Los Angeles area, I was working up in the control tower at LAX monitoring those IFR conditions. The ceiling was low, the visibility was down, and that was a factor in that crash. Not the case yesterday across the San Fernando Valley. The winds were generally light, the visibility was good. There were a number of helicopters, which is the case in Los Angeles. Those helicopters... are so important. I used to like to call them, John, the Air Force of the newsroom. Once something significant broke, whether it was a wildfire or a pursuit, we would be on it first, and then we would wait for the ground troops, the crews on the ground, the news vans to arrive on scene of that event. So we all would launch under the two airports where the Los Angeles Airborne Media are based, Van Nuys Airport and Whiteman. Whiteman is where the NBC4 helicopter was based, and then we would arrive on scene. Yesterday evening, it was at that intersection of that horrific accident involving the bus and the SUV. It appears that it was a mechanical issue. Again, I'm not a pilot. I'm not an expert. I don't want to speculate. The NTSB, they are trained to do that, and we will soon get answers on what happened. Regardless, such a horrible situation. And in my years of flying, too, I'll tell you, I felt so safe up there. I worked for a company and our company contracted out with one at Van Nuys Airport where safety was so key. We would have these inspections called 30-hour inspections where they would check the rotor and drive controls. And a 30-hour inspection means 30 hours of flying. And in LA, with all the news, those would occur about weekly. Fluids and filters were checked. There were chip detectors to make sure there's no metal debris. in the rotor system all of that was done meticulously to make sure that they were operational good operation helicopters for us i felt safe was i ever nervous up there did i have anxiety of course i did when there were strong winds when there were 50 60 mile per hour sandy and winds blowing over a mountain that was burning i felt uncomfortable of course but i knew that i was in good hands with my helicopter pilot and with a good operating helicopter as well Speaker 1 (10:27) How does this work? Is the copter owned by the television station or the radio station? Is the pilot an employee of the television station or the radio station? Or do they contract out to another company and the only employee of the shop of the television station is the reporter? All of the above. And sometimes, Speaker 6 (10:52) first of all, let's talk about the crew of the helicopter. There would be between two and three individuals in a media helicopter. Last evening, it was Eliana and George, a crew of two. George was piloting over 14,000 hours of piloting for him, a very precision pilot. And then Eliana, as the reporter and photojournalist, she had operation of the camera. and would do the actual reporting. The helicopter that I flew in out of Van Nuys Airport, we had a crew of three. We had the pilot, then we had an engineer in back who would operate the camera, and then I was just the talking head. I sat up front with the pilot. I looked down upon the story down below or on the video that my engineer in the back was providing. Crew of three. Sometimes you even would have a pilot reporter. Those are more and more rare. Those are you know, situations where you're flying the aircraft, you're communicating with other aircraft, you're communicating with the ATC, in addition to trying to report