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Air11 Crash


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In another thread on HAIF people are talking about helicopters lifting heavy objects. It reminded me of a set of photos I took in May of 2001 that I don't think I've ever shared with the public before.

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As you can tell, Air11 crashed on the roof. The pilot wasn't hurt, but he was fired even though it wasn't his fault. Typical KHOU.

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Thanks for the great pictures. I know you all are too young to remember, but back in the 1960s a news chopper crashed and took the lives of the two men on board. I'm sorry that I don't remember their names or the station. They did the traffic reports and we listened to them often. Just do not remember the names.

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Was anyone hurt in this crash?
Nope.
Are these the pictures of the crash that occured while the news was being broadcast and startled the anchors? If so it feels it feels like it just happend. I don't remember if anyone was injurred. Thanks for the pics
No, this happened in between shows. I seem to recall that a few months later Fox26's helicopter went down and someone died in that crash.
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Thanks for the great pictures. I know you all are too young to remember, but back in the 1960s a news chopper crashed and took the lives of the two men on board. I'm sorry that I don't remember their names or the station. They did the traffic reports and we listened to them often. Just do not remember the names.

October 10, 1964, the crash of the Kodabird. Pilot William 'Billy' Holmes and reporter Ted Carr were killed. There's a picture of the Kodabird on my blog, toward the bottom of the main page. The station was KODA, 1010 kc, now KLAT, La Tremenda. It wasn't the first helicopter used by a Houston radio station but it was the first one used just for traffic and I believe it was the first crash anywhere of a helicopter used by the media and it sent a chill thru the industry. The station never put another helicopter in the air.

I have recently been in touch with a woman who was the unborn daughter of Holmes; she was born 6 weeks later and because the crash traumatized and broke up her family had never known much about her Dad. If, perchance, there are any HAIFers who knew Billy Holmes, please PM me and I'll pass along your contact information to her.

I have also been in contact with someone who did know Holmes and also was a responder to the scene as a Reserve Deputy Sheriff. Initial reports were that the copter had been shot down because of loud pops that were heard before it crashed but a lengthy investigation determined that a design flaw had caused the rotor to freeze up and the pops were the sound of the blades snapping off.

On this site there are recordings made around the time of the incident on several Houston stations, none of the actual crash. The operator of this site is trying to keep everything on one page and the material was some of the first he ever put on line and is way down at the bottom of the page.

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brucesw, do you any have information on the LifeFlight crash near Almeda Rd. several years ago? This was the single chopper that John Sealy Hospital operated before merging their flight operations with Hermann. You seem to be ....in the know!

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October 10, 1964, the crash of the Kodabird. Pilot William 'Billy' Holmes and reporter Ted Carr were killed. There's a picture of the Kodabird on my blog, toward the bottom of the main page. The station was KODA, 1010 kc, now KLAT, La Tremenda. It wasn't the first helicopter used by a Houston radio station but it was the first one used just for traffic and I believe it was the first crash anywhere of a helicopter used by the media and it sent a chill thru the industry. The station never put another helicopter in the air.

I have recently been in touch with a woman who was the unborn daughter of Holmes; she was born 6 weeks later and because the crash traumatized and broke up her family had never known much about her Dad. If, perchance, there are any HAIFers who knew Billy Holmes, please PM me and I'll pass along your contact information to her.

I have also been in contact with someone who did know Holmes and also was a responder to the scene as a Reserve Deputy Sheriff. Initial reports were that the copter had been shot down because of loud pops that were heard before it crashed but a lengthy investigation determined that a design flaw had caused the rotor to freeze up and the pops were the sound of the blades snapping off.

On this site there are recordings made around the time of the incident on several Houston stations, none of the actual crash. The operator of this site is trying to keep everything on one page and the material was some of the first he ever put on line and is way down at the bottom of the page.

Thank you so much for this information. I remember the incident well and feel badly that I had forgotten the details. I did enjoy listening to these guys, they were fun!

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brucesw, do you any have information on the LifeFlight crash near Almeda Rd. several years ago? This was the single chopper that John Sealy Hospital operated before merging their flight operations with Hermann. You seem to be ....in the know!

No, sorry. My field is radio history, not choppers.

I have been informed that it was not the first crash of a media helicopter that took a life, there was one in Chicago in 1960.

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