4.2.12 WC: 191694
Make believe murder: the case of the falling helicopter
Another case that we won on the basis of science grew out of the making a major motion picture directed by Steven Spielberg and John Landis. The film was The Twilight Zone, based on the television series by that name. There were three segments to the film, each directed by a different person. John Landis, already famous for directing Animal House, and other mega-hits, was directing a segment involving the Vietnam War. The star of that segment was the veteran actor Vic Morrow. The scene at issue called for Morrow’s character to be running through a rice patty, in pitch darkness, carrying two children as helicopters fired at them.
Landis wanted to make the scene as realistic as possible, so he filmed it at night, with extensive pyrotechnics and a real helicopter flying low to the ground. Tragically, the helicopter crashed into Morrow and the children, killing them instantly. Landis was charged with involuntary manslaughter, and he retained me to consult with his trial lawyer and to prepare an appeal, if necessary. He was the first film director in history to be criminally charged with causing the death of an actor.
The major issue at the trial was whether the accident should have been foreseeable. If it was foreseeable to a reasonably prudent director that a helicopter, placed in the circumstances in which this one had been placed, might crash, then the directorial decision to have the helicopter fly close to the pyrotechnics could satisfy the legal criteria for involuntary manslaughter. But if the crash could not reasonably have been anticipated, then it would have to be regarded as an accident, giving rise, perhaps, to civil liability, but not to a criminal charge carrying the prospect of imprisonment.
The prosecutor called 71 witnesses, many of whom offered scientific testimony about the cause of the crash and why it should have been anticipated. The defense summoned scientific witnesses who testified that an accident of this kind—the heat from pyrotechnics causing the tail rotor of the helicopter to become delaminated—had never before occurred and could not therefore have been anticipated. In fact, when the helicopter crashed it came very close to killing Landis.
The jury deliberated for nine days before finding Landis (and his co-defendants) not guilty.
Several years later, it appeared as if another director might be in trouble for the death of an actor while filming a motion picture called “The Crow”. The actor was Brandon Lee, the son of Bruce Lee, the famous Kung Fu actor, who himself died while filming “The Game of Death.” Brandon
Lee was killed by a metal projectile that was accidentally shot from a gun firing blanks during the filming.
A criminal investigation was opened and I was asked to consult with the lawyers for the production team. Eventually, the lawyers persuaded the authorities not to indict anyone for the tragic accident.
The end result in both the Landis and Lee cases was that greater care is now being exercised during filming of sequences that pose significant risks to participants. Sometimes it takes
tragedies to improve safety.
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