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KOMO 4 Helicopter Crashes in Seattle

3/18/2014

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This post is especially troubling to write because I have friends who work in TV news in Seattle. I gasped when I checked my phone this morning and saw that everyone was re-tweeting this image from the Seattle Fire Dept.
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(Seattle Fire Dept. photo)
No way. Not again. Was it a news chopper? Which station? Within minutes I learned the awful news. It was the KOMO 4 helicopter, a familiar aircraft in Seattle, where it gathered stunning views of an iconic skyline and helped bring viewers a better perspective of the day's news.

KOMO 4, an ABC station, is headquartered right next to the Space Needle in a sophisticated glass and steel building that's the envy of many TV stations. Their heli-pad is on their roof, just a stone's throw from the Space Needle. I've seen their helicopter take off and land from that location. 
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This Google Map shows KOMO headquaters and their heli-pad on the lower right side. You can see the Space Needle toward the middle.
I can't imagine what it's like for photographers, reporters, producers, and the production teams at the Seattle stations to cover something like this. Many of them no doubt knew one or two of the individuals killed in the crash.

This has happened before, most notably in Phoenix, where two news choppers collided during breaking news in 2007. I often think about colleagues who cover the days events from the sky and wonder if their job ever scares them. On days like this it must.
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