Chasing a Story: The 2007 Phoenix news helicopter collision
On the 27th of July 2007, two news helicopters covering a police chase in Phoenix, Arizona collided in midair on live TV, sending both choppers plummeting to their doom in a suburban park. The fiery collision claimed the lives of four reporters and raised serious questions about the way TV stations across America were operating their helicopters. Had the race to provide live coverage of every police chase gone too far? Were the pilots, who doubled as field reporters, being asked to do too much? Before the wreckage had even gone cold, aviation professionals and TV journalists alike were calling into doubt the safety of the existing system. The investigation into the crash would largely affirm these concerns: there were in fact fundamental problems with the way news helicopters were operated, and clearer rules were desperately needed. Fifteen years later, much has indeed changed in this niche industry, and the collision over Phoenix has come to mark the moment local TV stations across America were forced to accept the idea that news is not a zero-sum game.The year 2007 fell at the height of a golden age for the uniquely American cultural phenomenon that is the live police pursuit broadcast. In the United States, the exceptionally broad use of pursuit tactics by law enforcement, the proliferation of local cable TV channels, and a media environment with an eye for spectacle had long combined to produce a type of live television drama that is rarely seen in other countries. And when one metropolitan area might have half a dozen competing TV stations, each of which wants to be the first on the scene of an unfolding chase, the prevailing wisdom was that every channel simply must operate a helicopter.
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