News and helicopters - e.g. BA038
 

The accident to BA038 happened at 12:42 on 17/01/2008. The first I knew about it was on going into the work canteen a minute or two after 13:00 and there it was, on the news - helicopter pictures and no information at all about what had happened.

What I'd like to know is, how do you get hold of a helicopter and pilot so quickly? - is there one always on standby for this sort of thing? -, and how actually would the news organisations find out about an event - Heathrow/BA press office, or passers-by?

Certainly here in the US, news stations listen to ATC, police & fire scanners. Most big stations in large metro areas have a dedicated helicopter with a pilot on 5 to 10 minute launch readiness.

Gordy,

Totally agree, in Atlanta the WSBTV helicopter is never far behind any incidents that occur.

Apart from London you don’t see as much quick helicopter news coverage in the UK

I spent a fair bit of time sitting at a desk in Ch 9 Sydney, next to the senior news editor, Choof, who had a bank of scanners. Any hint of a story and away we went, depending on ATC / distance from Sydney. At another time, I made a lot of effort to get ATC clearance to land on a footy field almost under the approach path to the international airport, used up a big favour with the Senior Terminal Area Controller to get in there, but finally got onto the ground. The big story was to talk to some football player who had twisted his ankle and might not be able to play the following week. Not happy, Jan.

Ascend Charlie, we must know each other.

Arena at Redhill have contracts with Sky and BBC. Details here..
https://www.arena-aircraft.com/

You're assuming that it was a news helicopter. It may not have been.

Regular helicopters transit LHR all the time, SOP is to fly right over the runways at the 27 end. Pilots (and passengers) have mobiles. Mobiles have cameras ...

Maybe one just happened to be in the right place at the right time.

IIRC the filming was of professional quality even if the commentating was along the lines of "This doesn't look right".

Slightly off thread what is the preferred helicopter for news teams around the world? Obviously carrying cameras, reporters and crew.

Hard to go past an AS350 for that job. B2 or above preferably for the extra ponies.

And is / was not Sky headquarters in Hounslow right under the flightpath

I think the filming you're on a bout was done by Flying TV using an R44.
I do rememer being surprised at how far away some of the filming was done.
At one point the 777 was sitting in full frame when the camera zoomed back. And back. And back...
The 44 must have been hovering several miles away...

In the NYC area, it's an all Bell fleet with the exception of an AS350 on Long Island. A few 407s, a few 206's. Outside of NYC, some 505's are starting to appear as ENG platforms.

In Los Angeles, it's very heavily favored for AS350s, with Helinet managing many of them.

Favourite TV ad for this year.