News Copter Crews Rescued Pilot

VAN NUYS — Authorities on Monday credited the heroics of rival TV news helicopter crews for helping save the lives of a pilot and cameraman whose aircraft slammed into the pavement at Van Nuys Airport and burst into flames on the way back from the Academy Awards.

Both pilot Kris Kelley, who was flying for KTTV-TV Channel 11, and Phil Arno, the cameraman, were seriously hurt but are expected to recover. Investigators with the National Transportation Safety Board on Monday were focusing on the apparent failure of the helicopter’s hydraulic system as the cause of the crash.

Kelley was flying a French-made Aerospatiale AS-350B, a six-seat jet engine helicopter owned by the Purwin Co. of Van Nuys and leased to Helinet Aviation Service, a Van Nuys chopper-for-hire 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, is “sending AFTRA-represented reporters in the (possibly) unsafe aircraft” operated by Helinet.

Union officials would not elaborate on the concerns Monday.

Helinet Vice President Dave Corsello said the allegation of unsafe aircraft was “absolutely untrue,” adding that his company flies 22,000 hours a year in 36 aircraft and hasn’t had an accident since 1996.

George Petterson, chief air safety investigator for the NTSB, said the Aerospatiale had no history of problems and that the pilot was fully certified. The Aerospatiale AS-350B was built in 1984 and had around 8,000 hours on its single engine.

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 Awards 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 headed 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 volunteered to escort her.

“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, flew the 15 miles back to Van Nuys without any problems. But as her helicopter approached Van Nuys Airport to land, it started wobbling, witnesses said.

Suddenly, 50 feet above the landing pad, the KTTV chopper dropped from the sky, crashed into the pavement and rolled on its side. The fuel tanks split open and gallons of jet 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 sprinted to the smashed wreckage.

“I saw her make one circle over the ramp and then she spiraled right into the ground,” Fitzgerald said. “I was in shock.”

Kelley, 33, was standing in the middle of the debris, dazed and silent. She was soaked in jet fuel. Fitzgerald pulled Kelley away from the wreck, then dashed back to get Arno, her cameraman. Fitzgerald couldn’t find him at first, but then saw the 50-year-old 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. There was a trail of jet fuel as he dragged him away, Fitzgerald said.

Kelley’s injuries included a fractured pelvic bone and a broken wrist and knee.

Arno, a free-lance cameraman from Chatsworth, suffered a shattered ankle and a concussion.

Both were in stable condition at Northridge Hospital Medical Center on Monday night.

Witnesses to the fiery crash said it could have been a lot worse.

“I remember thinking, it’s a miracle they are not dead,” Welk said. “I was moved to tears when I saw Kris.”

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

Thanks to the news crews, the fire dangers had been minimized, officials said.

“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. Many times she’s practiced landings without using hydraulic power, he added.

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 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.

Hydraulic problems in some helicopters can cause flight controls to essentially lock up, said Dick Wright, director of safety and flight operations for Helicopter Assn. International, a trade association. Complete hydraulic failure, however, is rare, he said.

Wright 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, Wright said.

The NTSB’s Petterson said the post-crash response was exemplary.

“We’re very fortunate with the way the people on the ground responded,” Petterson said. “If [the pilot] had landed in a remote field, this could have ended a lot differently.”

The wreckage was lifted by a crane Monday morning onto a flatbed truck and moved for further investigation to a storage facility at Compton Airport, Petterson said.

Times staff writers Kristina Sauerwein, Martha L. Willman and Edgar Sandoval contributed to this story, as did Times Research Librarian Ron Weaver.