Why Helicopters Are Critical for Covering LA Breaking News

Here’s a behind-the-scenes look at Helinet Aviation’s ENG operation.

Los Angeles is notorious for gridlock traffic and known for being what some call the police pursuit capital of the world. In the No. 2 television market in the country, getting to breaking news or those high-speed chases quickly usually involves doing so from the air.

Television stations across the country use ENG (electronic news gathering) helicopters as a tool to capture news live. However, as costs have tightened in newsrooms, the number of helicopters has decreased over the years.

But in LA having one is a necessity. 

“[It’s] just almost impossible to cover breaking news without a helicopter,” said KABC-TV helicopter reporter Chris Cristi. “And if you want to be first on the scene, if you want to get to the story fast, you have to be in the air.” 

Helinet Aviation, based at Van Nuys Airport (KVNY) in Los Angeles, provides many helicopter services, like utility aerial production, VIP charter, air medical, and ENG.

Helinet provides ENG services for KABC-TV, the ABC network-owned-and-operated station for the LA market. The helicopter, pilots, and camera operators work for Helinet, but the on-air reporters are Disney employees. Disney owns ABC.

“What ENG is in a helicopter is basically newsgathering on steroids,” said Marcel Melanson, the lead camera operator with Helinet Aviation. “In an environment like a metropolis, like Los Angeles, getting breaking news is quite a challenge. It happens everywhere, and it’s all the time.”

The Los Angeles TV market covers a massive geographical area, including LA, Riverside, Orange, Ventura, and San Bernardino counties. With Southern California being notorious for unrelenting traffic, it can take hours to reach a news story.

Melanson said having ENG is a game changer. 

“You have to get there while it’s happening, and people want to know and get that information out as soon as they can,” Melanson said. “And if you are doing it by car, it just wouldn’t happen in this area, because by the time you get there [with traffic], most of those things would be over.”

Melanson has been in the aviation film business for about a decade but got his start as a freelance stringer, someone who chases news and sells video to stations, when he was a teenager. 

“Now I’m shooting news from 1,000 [feet] on the same streets that I was…when I was 16 covering stories,” he said. “[Listening to] the same scanners. I’m just chasing them now from a higher perspective.”

Helinet staffs its ENG helicopters about 20 hours a day. The company operates three Airbus H125s, formerly known as the Eurocopter AS350, and can fly for about two to two and a half hours before needing to be refueled. There’s a team of three people that fly in the helicopter—the pilot, camera operator, and reporter. 

“There’s a lot going on when we fly,” said Helinet pilot Kyle Rainey. “We kind of don’t know where we’re going on most flights. Usually we get a direction, and then as we’re going, we’ll get more details about…specifically where it is.” 

Rainey, who has six years of flying experience, has been with the company for about a year. The Los Angeles area airspace is extremely busy with all sorts of aircraft. Rainey said they usually monitor multiple frequencies and talk with the other news helicopters on the helo frequency, along with the control towers. 

“When you first are flying here, it’s really overwhelming,” Rainey said. “There’s a ton of airspaces and aircraft everywhere. And after a while, you get a really good sense where most of the aircraft are flying or transitioning through LA, and you kind of know where planes are going as they’re landing at different airports and which way they’re going to depart.” 

No Special Rules

There are no special rules for ENG helicopters, as they fly under FAA Part 91, according to Melanson. 

“So we follow all the FAA flight rules,” he said. “We don’t fly any type of special IFR or goggles or anything like that, everything has to be VFR.”

So how does the helicopter know exactly when to head to a news event?

Melanson said the camera operator stays in contact with the assignment desk at the TV station newsroom. The desk personnel listen to police scanners, check social media, and field tips for all kinds of news. The desk will then contact the helo photographer to let the crew know where to go. 

“When that breaking news call comes in, we have about 10 minutes from the time we get to the call to get airborne,” Melanson said. “So during the day the pilot’s always keeping the helicopter in a state of readiness.”

When the crew receives a call, they may not know when they will be able to come back to their base, so they have to be prepared. 

“Being that breaking news is what it is, it’s always something that you have to plan for—the unexpected,” Melanson said. “And we’re ready to be gone for long periods of time.”

The ENG helicopters are equipped with:

• Shotover F1 six-axis, gyro-stabilizer cameras.
• Microwave pods that transmit the live signal from the helicopter to a receive site on a mountaintop then back to the station to feed out live to the audience
• Starlink that feeds back multiple cameras to the station and can be used when there is no line of sight to a microwave site.
• Telestrator with skymapping technology.

“It takes somebody that knows how to multitask and somebody that can understand the technical aspects of it, because you’re not just moving the camera, you’re also controlling the audio, the video, the video signal, whatever it takes to make that live shot,” Melanson said. “You’re doing about seven things to make that happen, as well as the switcher, as well as recording, as well as the reporters sometimes might ask you to recall tape.”

Multiple Uses

While the helicopter is used for breaking news and capturing events live, it’s also a great tool to record video that can be used for other stories too. 

“A lot of people think the helicopter is just for breaking news, but a lot of what we do also during the day is if a reporter has a story, and they want aerial shots to add to their story or…help tell their story,” Melanson said. “[It may be] they’re talking about a freeway closure…or tearing down a building…”

When it comes to the notorious police pursuits in Southern California, Melanson said it takes a lot of coordination, as there could be seven to eight helicopters in the air between media and law enforcement.

“A lot of that coordination falls on the pilot,” he said. “Obviously we’re helping. We’re looking out the window. There’s times where we’re close enough [that] I could see the expression of the other camera operators out the window because it gets that close. And kudos to our pilots for being able to manage to maintain the safety, because safety’s always first.”

Law enforcement helicopters will fly about 500 feet, and media helicopters will be at 1,000-1,200 feet, Melanson said. He also said that when the news helicopters are flying together, there may be just one pilot calling out locations so air traffic controllers (ATCs) are not inundated. 

“Even though we’re quote, unquote ‘in a competitive situation’ when it comes to coordination and safety, that’s how the pilots handle it,” he said. “And it works very well. There’s not a lot of times…in LA pursuit and there’s somebody that doesn’t have a good angle or a good shot.”

Rare Breed

Cristi is one of the few helicopter reporters left in the country. He has worked in Miami and Orlando in Florida, and New York but said working in Los Angeles and Southern California remains unmatched.

“There’s a lot of telepathy going on up there,” said Cristi. “And it’s really a dynamic environment—a very, very high-stress job. But it’s got to be probably the most fun job in TV. And I think…maybe the people watching what is coming from the helicopter may not realize how much work goes into that.”

Cristi said the most memorable story he has covered during his time at KABC-TV was the deadly and devastating fires in Altadena and Pacific Palisades in January 2025. 

“It’s just left such a mark on the city, and being able to witness that from the air, both during the fire and the aftermath and the recovery, is really emotional,” he said. 

Melanson also pointed to the fires as his most memorable assignment. 

“As soon as the smoke cleared, I was able to actually see the Palisades for the first time,” he said. “The reporter and I…gasped at the same time because I had seen fires and destruction before. The reporter I’m with has seen the same, but…it looked like a bomb went off. It looked like it was just leveled.” 

For those aspiring to get into the aviation field, Cristi said frequenting your local airport goes a long way. 

“It really doesn’t matter what part of the industry you want to work in, just being at an airport and hanging out is probably the smartest thing you could do,” he said.

Rainey advised taking a demo flight as well.

“You just want to try it,” he said. “You want an honest instructor and you want to go in with an open mind.”

https://www.flyingmag.com/why-helicopters-are-critical-for-covering-la-breaking-news