Veteran helicopter pilot and former news reporter Zoey Tur is weighing in on the deadly Chatsworth helicopter crash, offering a grim preliminary assessment of what may have gone wrong.
Tur, who made history covering breaking news from the skies over Los Angeles, said audio from the crash appeared to capture signs of an engine failure shortly before the helicopter went down.
“If you listen, you could hear the low rotor RPM annunciator horn going off. You could also hear the engine rev down. This was an engine failure, and slow response into entering an auto -rotation by PiC. No survivors,” they posted after the crash.
Tur became a legendary figure in Los Angeles television news alongside then-spouse Marika Gerrard, using a helicopter to capture some of the city’s biggest breaking-news moments.
Their aerial team captured the first live broadcast of a high-speed police pursuit, the 1992 beating of Reginald Denny during the Los Angeles riots and O.J. Simpson’s infamous 1994 slow-speed Bronco chase.
Tur went on to earn multiple Emmy and Edward R. Murrow awards for journalism and aerial reporting.
The assessment comes as federal investigators begin examining the crash. The National Transportation Safety Board is leading the investigation, while the Federal Aviation Administration will examine regulatory and licensing issues.
Officials have not yet determined the cause of the crash.
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