TV Rivals Help Save Lives of Pilot, Cameraman Hurt in Copter Crash

Authorities on Monday credited the heroics of a rival TV news helicopter crew with helping save the lives of a pilot and cameraman whose aircraft slammed into the ground at Van Nuys Airport and burst into flames on the way back from the Academy Awards.

Pilot Kris Kelley, who was working for KTTV-TV Channel 11, and Phil Arno, the cameraman, were seriously hurt but are expected to recover. The National Transportation Safety Board on Monday was focusing on the apparent failure of the hydraulic system as the cause of the crash.

Kelley was flying a French-made Aerospatiale AS350B, a six-seat jet engine helicopter owned by the Purwin Co. of Van Nuys and leased to Helinet Aviation Service, a Van Nuys chopper rental company.

In a March 9 grievance filed with KTTV, the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists said it had learned of “possible safety concerns” regarding Helinet aircraft.

The grievance cited concerns that KTTV, a Fox affiliate, was “sending AFTRA-represented reporters in the (possibly) unsafe aircraft.”

Helinet vice president Dave Corsello said the allegation of unsafe aircraft was “absolutely untrue.” His company flies 22,000 hours a year in 36 aircraft and hasn’t had an accident since 1996, he said.

The trouble started around 10 p.m. Sunday as Kelley and Arno hovered over the Shrine Auditorium for a live shot of celebrities leaving the Academy Award ceremony. At one point, the chopper plunged toward the star-studded red carpet in front of the Shrine.

Kelley regained control, radioed she was having problems and began to head back to her home base in Van Nuys.

Two other news pilots who heard her distress call broke away from their assignments at the Shrine and flew escort.

“This is a small group of people who do this for a living, and it’s not always the safest kind of living,” said Roger Bell, news director for KCBS-TV Channel 2. “When it comes down to it, these guys really pull for each other.”

Kelley, trailed by one helicopter filming for “Entertainment Tonight” and another for KTLA-TV Channel 5, returned to Van Nuys. But as her craft approached the airport, it began wobbling, witnesses said.

Fifty feet above the ground, it dropped from the sky, crashed into the pavement and rolled on its side. The fuel tanks split open and fuel splashed out, catching fire.

Larry Welk, the pilot working for “Entertainment Tonight” and grandson of bandleader Lawrence Welk, swooped down to help. His cameraman, Aaron Fitzgerald, a 30-year-old former U.S. Army paratrooper, leaped from the cockpit and ran to the wreckage.

Kelley, 33, was standing in the middle of the debris, dazed. Her pelvic bone was fractured, her wrist and knee broken and she was soaked in jet fuel. Fitzgerald pulled Kelley from the wreck, then he ran back for Arno. Fitzgerald couldn’t find him at first, but then saw Arno pinned beneath a sheet of metal, bleeding and drenched in jet fuel.

Fitzgerald said he peeled the roof off the chopper and grabbed Arno, a 50-year-old freelance cameraman, who had suffered a shattered ankle and a concussion.

Both Arno and Kelley were in stable condition at Northridge Hospital Medical Center Monday night.

Aviation ground crews with hand-held extinguishers began dousing the flames moments before 30 firefighters from the airport’s crash team arrived to extinguish the fire with foam.

“If it were not for [helicopter crews] running to their sides, the fire could have spread and consumed them,” said Los Angeles Fire Department Capt. Steve Ruda.

Kelley doesn’t remember much about the crash, said Helinet’s Corsello. Kelley, who lives in Thousand Oaks, has flown for five to six years and has extensive training, he said.

Arno’s wife, Mary, said she was at home when she heard a TV report of the accident.

“I was doing something else and had one ear on it and heard ‘This just in, we’ve had some disturbing news in the Fox family--Sky Fox has gone down.’ It was unreal. My heart just stopped,” said Mary Arno, an assistant editor at the Los Angeles Times.

At the hospital, she said, her husband told her he had thought “it was all over” when he saw Kelley struggle with the loss of hydraulic power.

“He said, ‘It’s like being in a car and losing your power steering, only 20 times worse,’ ” she said.

Dick Wright, director of safety and flight operations for Helicopter Assn. International, a trade association, said that from what he knows of the incident, the pilot “did exactly what I would have done in a similar situation.”

Kelley knew there was a chance there could be a rough landing, Wright said, and by making the 15-minute flight to Van Nuys, she was able to land in an area where rescue equipment and crews were mobilizing.

George Petterson, chief air safety investigator for the NTSB, said the Aerospatiale had no history of problems.

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Staff writers Kristina Sauerwein, Martha L. Willman and Edgar Sandoval contributed to this story, as did research librarian Ron Weaver.