Two News Helicopters Collide In Phoenix

With the huge growth of news helicopters, coupled with competition for police chases by local news stations (anyone who has visited Los Angeles has seen plenty of that) this was a day that you could almost guess was coming. And yesterday was the sad day when two news helicopters collided over Phoenix while they covered a police chase — killing two people in each of the helicopters.

The story in videos:

The disturbing (WARNING) final moments as seen on TV while a news anchor talks to the traffic reporter.

Distraught Fox pilot describes what he just saw from the air.

Channel 5 pans to the crash scene.

Police chases have come under fire in recent years because of “collateral damage” — people who might get hurt during the chase. Watch for there to be new regulations covering helicopters on the scene as well.

The question is going to be how the two copters got so close for the crash to occur. Wind? Too focused on the chase to notice? Did they often get rather close to each other? How and why did it happen?