http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/07/27/helicopter.crash/index.html

You may or may not have seen this on the news, but this guy was involved in a car chase with police. Two helicopters, while reporting on the chase, collided with each other. Apparently, the police may try and press charges related to the deaths of those in the helicopters.

I, personally, am of the opinion that they shouldn't try him for the four deaths. I suppose that you can argue that he created circumstances that allowed the collision to happen, but, then, isn't any news-worthy event a possible circumstance that could lead to a collision like this?

What's your opinion, Temple de Massassi?

wow..

That's stupid. The guy probably didn't even know there were 2 helicopters there. He obviously had no control over what the helicopters were doing so how he can possibly be blamed for the crash?

Ever since they started doing chase cams, the number of people driving down the street have skyrocketed.
But are they about to start charging the reporters for that?

It's because he's BLACK

There's no reasonable expectation that leading police on a chase is going to result in a helicopter crash. I'm gonna say no.

If he wasn't breaking the law in the first place, the choppers would never have been on the scene, is the point I believe.

If it were police losses I would agree completely that the man should be blamed for the loss, but as it stands, I don't think he should be blamed for the death of members of the press, its not like they had to be there, as it is with the police.

Charging him for the deaths is ridiculous. This is nothing but trying to shift the blame off of pilot error.

The one who should be charged, if anybody, is the official who approved the pilot's license to the pilot who was guilty of colliding with the other helicopter.

I'm worried by the fact that I'm pretty sure someone on Massassi will say that he should be held responsible. Which would be stupid, to be quite honest.

I saw the news report of this incident, and they said the pilot of one of the helicopters was watching and narrating the chase when he lost sight of the other one. They played the broadcast from just before it happened, and you can hear him ask the reporter where the other helicopter was. I'm in no way familiar with air safety or anything, but it really seems to me that the pilot should have been focusing on, you know, flying the helicopter. Especially when there's another one right near him.
The guy involved with the car chase might have created the circumstances for this to happen, but it was news helicopters in the sky, not police ones. They didn't have to be there.

Not to mention the police copters wouldn't be that stupid

Obviously foolish on the pilot's part. If you're in a helicopter, and you loose sight of another helicopter that you could possibly RUN INTO, the safest course of action would be to park and hover in midair until you locate the other helicopter. No?

I was going to post this thread sooner or later but you already did it! I couldn't ****ing believe my eyes when I read that the police chief wanted to charge the guy with those four deaths. THE GUY RUNNING FROM THE COPS DIDN'T KILL THOSE PEOPLE. The two helicopter pilots killed each other in an ACCIDENT. Even a five-year-old could tell you that. That police chief should get ****-canned.

That's what I was thinking. I don't know which helicopter it was that the video was from, but on the tape it didn't look like they were moving, but it's kind of hard to tell. It might've been the helicopter that got flown into by the other one. I also didn't think he seemed overly concerned where the other one went when he lost sight of it. He kind of said "oh crap, where's two?" and then went back to narrating the event. Then seconds later he said something like "oh god no" and then it looked like he either tried to get out of the way, or drifted into the other one.
Whatever happened, I think it's a complete accident and even though the dude in the car chase is a douche he shouldn't have their deaths on his head, too.

Well think about it this way, if he zooms through an intersection that has a red light, and an oil tanker loses control, jack knifes, and flips over trying to stop, killing 12 people. It's totally his fault, and he would be charged for it.

Just saying.

Other drivers on the road don't know abot the chase and have no choice but to be involved in that kind of situation.

If you suffer a cardiac arrest and an ambulance is sent to fetch you to the hospital but on its way to your place the ambulance gets into a car accident, they won't charge you for wounding or even killing the poor ambulance crew. They were just doing their job and an accident happened. In this incident, the crews of the helicopters were doing their job (how well is another matter), and an accident happened. It was their job to be there, and obviously it was a job with some calculated risks.

(followup to Avenger's post)
Yeah, in that situation the tanker didn't have any choice in being involved, and the escaping driver would have been the direct cause of the accident because he was breaking the law. If the tanker was chasing him, however, just to watch the chase and then had a crash, then it would the fault of the guy driving the tanker.

Your comparison sucks.

Ill bite.


They should fry this guy. People like that should not be allowed to walk the streets. WHY WONT ANYONE THINK OF THE CHILDREN?

No doubt, because you say so. It might not be the best comparison in existence, but I don't see any others posted.

QFBTWIWGTS

That's my town.

It's obviously not the man's fault.

This is like saying people who are involved in an accident are responsible for others who crash because they were rubbernecking the original accident.

Exactly. The helicopters were pursuing the chase, not just "bystanders". Its obviously the other helicopters fault, for ramming into a stationary aircraft, which the pilot failed to observe.

Stay still? But then you're a sitting target for the OTHER helicopter to careen into you! ;]

So if this scenario were subtly different and two police helicopters crashed into eachother and policemen died, the consensus is that this man should be held responsible for their deaths?

Since when did justice depend on the 'status' of the victim?

If they were police helicopters, the situation oughn't be any different. It is their job to fly the helicopter; the deaths are a result of them not doing their job very well.
Similarly, if a policeman accidentally shot another policeman then that isn't the fault of the criminal in question.

The news reporters in the helicopters were just doing their job; like a police helicopter pilot, just doing his job. It is all very well to say the news reporters 'don't have to be there', but that issue has nothing to do with the news report or the helicopter pilot; it is their job to be there, and in the competitive nature of news reporting they do indeed have to be there, or else someone else will. This might be an issue for news corporations (or maybe government legislators), but not for the pilot himself.

It's not to say that he would be accountable if they were police helicopters, I think it's more that people are thinking it wouldn't have happened then because the pilots wouldn't be too busy trying to describe the chase to keep an eye on what's around them. They'd be piloting the damn bird instead.

Then that's negligence on the pilot's part if they aren't paying attention to their flying. Like mentioned above, if I'm driving my car and start paying attention to an accident on the side of the road then proceed to rear end another car, I'm at fault. Not the people who were in the accident on the side of the road.

Exactly.

Thank you, thats probably the most clear and true post in the whole thread. Possibly in all of Massassi.

What if it's not an accident but a hottie walking around with her tatas showing. Like the bus driver.

Like the bus driver.

Please note I agree with you, and this is a seperate scenario. BUt I like talking about women's breasts more than dead people.

Looking at a hottie walking down the street while driving = not paying attention to one's driving. it doesn't matter what distracts someone. They'd sill be at fault.

Oh yeah?! What if a heart-eating alien carrying the shriveled corpse of a long-dead ancestor bursts out of the ground and you rear-end someone, huh?! Still your fault?!

Stupid.

**** yes. If my ancestors are bursting out of the ground it's obviously because of the "very serious and real black magic" I dabbled in in high school.

That **** is freaky, yo. Those pagans with the big boots are a REAL RELIGION!

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