I didn't know if this is the appropriate forum for this subject, but...
I've been reading all I can find about the tragic accident that cost three people their lives while filming the "Twilight Zone Movie", the the three being actor Vic Morrow and two children. during the shoot while simulating a Vietnam war battle, a helecopter crashed into the three, decapitating Vic Morrow and chopping up the two children. what I find galling is that director John Landis walked away scott-free on manslaughter charges. the footage of the actual accident apparently showed up years ago on a video called "Death Faces 2". I've seen a 22-second clip and it's pretty fascinating, yet disturbing. crimelibrary.com has a pretty extensive article about the incident.

^I've seen that video aswell, I didn't think it was real at first. What was the cause of the accident, was it just carelessly planned?

the footage looks real to me, if it were a hoax,it's a pretty elaborate one. from what I've read, the cause of the accident was poor planning and execution. apparently Landis also wanted to hide the fact that he was using children in an illegal capacity, and if I'm interpreting the information correctlly, that scene was shot in a hurry in order to avoid drawing attention to that fact.

I just wanted to ammend my last post. according to the article on crimelibrary.com, Landis was trying to avoid any child-labor law violations and didn't want to shoot a day for night scene because it wouldn't look real. he also refused to use stand-ins for the children because of realism.

I've seen that footage and I've read that article on crimelibrary.com. Very interesting.

I remember hearing about that years ago and I never really knew whether to believe it or not.

I'm convinced the footage is real. It probably leaked out and has been copied ad infinitum. these were the days before CGI effects, when either brave or stupid actors insisted on doing their own stunts. when the helecopter lands on its side and the rotors slash at the figures in the water before stopping is a chilling image. how John Landis ever weaseled out of it all is beyond me. perhaps Speilberg's power saved him

I remember weeing this as well a few times.
From what i've heard the chopper was apparently supposto tip and not fully fall over like it did. A bad support beam couldnt handle the weight and it crashed down sending the blades into them. It's one of those true tragic stories that shouldnt have happened.

I don't know who should have been blamed for something like that. Sure landis had a hand in a bad situation but you know well enough that he would never mean for anyone to get killed.

Sad story.

that's horrible. seriously. imagine if that happened today. he would be bankrupt and probably in jail.

it's sad that such a situation was able to happen. that's why hollywood has strict laws on child labor.

to be honest i dont like any of his movies. < sorry unrelated.

I remember seeing footage about this on the news back when it happened. It didn't show everything of course. Does the footage you're talking about really show Vic Morrow getting "decapitated" and the children being "chopped up"? That's pretty sick.

the footage shows rotor blades hitting the three, but it's from a distance so you cannot see any details, but unless you're a total ghoul, would you really want to? youtube.com is where I saw the footage and although the quality is horrible, you can still discern what is going on.

It was a horrible thing to happen. From reading the article at crimelibrary.com, it sounds like the desire for spectacular fx, and wanting to circumvent child labor laws, outweighed any safety concerns. And knowing what happened really makes that section of the movie creepy. Hey, did you know that Vic Morrow was Jennifer Jason Leigh's father? I hadn't known that.

But why is this in Urban Legends? The accident really did happen.

ouch that sucks major ass. to bad that had to happen but thats life

I remember the footage being on the news for quite a long time. It was sometime around the early 1980's. This was long before "Court T.V." and 24/7 news coverage of every rich kid who gets kidnapped. It really did happen. I think the movie where the footage finally showed up was called "Faces Of Death, pt 2".

OMG I have never seen that footage before! Does anyone has a link to it?

i do'nt know about landis dodging the labor laws,but the cause of the accident was an explosion for the scene that went off too close to the helicopter,thus knocking it out of the sky and into the water.landis went on trial for it,and was aquitted though!

i read about something like this but it was a different film i dunno what it was called but they were using blanks in a gun and when they went to use the gun a real bullet shot the actor and killed him. then a while later (not that day) the director was killed but an aeroplane crash. then another star was killed in a car crash ..........they scrapped the film

That's how Brandon Lee died while they were filming 'The Crow'.

And Bruce Lee too!

That's pretty sad..does anyone have a link to it from you tube? I would like to see it since I have an open mind and im not really squimish.

i dunno if you ve found it yet or not, but if you just type Vic Morrow into the search it ll come up.

link <-

!!!!

didn't bruce lee die from o.d.?

No it is typically believed that Bruce Lee died from a brain aneurysm. There are many people who believe that he was murdered etc. but in all reality it most likely was an aneurysm.

I remember when it was on the national news at the time it happend.John Landis should have gotten more than a manslaughter charge against him I think.
By the way alot of those tapes Faces of Death etc. the images on them come from news video footage.The news footage you see is edited to remove the more gory video,and somehow these edited parts wind up on these videos.
My sister works in television for Court Tv and before that she worked for Atlantic Sattelite
and they would see alot of that real horrible stuff,straight off the feeds.
I recall my dad once mentioning about how during WW2 an officer walked into the propellers of a plane and got cut up.Speculation was either he wasn't watching where he was going,or did it on purpose. Daddy said that was a hell of a way to commit suicide.
He saw alot of that stuff during the war.He never liked the smell of fat dripping onto hot coals when the neighbors bbqed. Said it reminded him of poor guys being burnt alive during the war,never do you forget the smell.
A british vet on a show about D-Day said the same thing about not forgetting the smell.
A lot of stuff my dad expeirenced during the war he never talked about,was just too bad.

yeah, Landis should have gotten more, but name me a case where a celebrity actually paid for their crimes. most of them weasel out with "community service" or immediatly check into rehab (the cure-all for any problem) and are forgiven. at worst, their careers are shot(Pee Wee Herman) or in the case of Lenny Bruce (who really never committed any crime other than speaking his mind), beaten down until they more or less take themselves out.

I just saw the clip. That is truely creepy, and what are the chances that this kind of thing can happen. I feel sorry for the parents, because the two children are soo young. These kind of accidents are very sad, and the fact that this video leaked onto the web is even worse.

The footage is real (it was shown in the court case) and it's really quite tragic. As far as to who was ultimately responsible for the actual accident - it was the FX crew. The person in charge of firing the pyrotechnics lit a fireball too close to the helicopter, casuing the rotors of the craft to delaminate. Landis' only real crime was hiring children out of the union and having them work after-hours. (which was the whole reason why he hired them out of the union) But he was the one that the media pointed the finger at. It's true that everything about the stunt was rushed, but the people in charge of the pyrotechnics and FX are the ones who were truly careless.

NTSB report

This is all true, I remember the court case and everything.



He was kinda shunned for awhile because of his behaviour at the trial, always smiling and alot of movie stars showed up to whatch the trial, he was doing photo ops and mingling with the everyone. It was almost as if he had little remorse for what had happened.

Here is the link to the video:

Link

It appears in the first couple of seconds of that video.

Well, when the movie was finished did the actor show up in any more scenes?

No he didn't, nobody knows for sure how he died. Most people think it was an allergic reaction to marijuana

I have heard bout that but have not seen the video. Where can I see this video. I know thy got killed butdidnt know it was such a horrible death.

There's a link on the second page.

That's so tragic, what a terrible way to die.