http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-heli5sep05,1,674864.story?coll=la-headlines-business
KATRINA'S AFTERMATH
Movie Pilot's Company Wins Raves for Real Disaster Video
Helinet Aviation of Van Nuys becomes the main source of aerial footage from
the storm zone.
By Myron Levin
LA Times Staff Writer
September 5, 2005
As an aerial coordinator for Hollywood movies, helicopter pilot Alan Purwin
has witnessed plenty of make-believe mayhem. But from the skies above New
Orleans and neighboring Gulf Coast cities, he has seen annihilation and
misery far beyond celluloid fantasies.
Purwin and his copter-for-hire business, Helinet Aviation Services of Van
Nuys, are largely responsible for the mesmerizing aerial footage that has
shown the murderous power of Hurricane Katrina.
Since Wednesday, Purwin and copilot and cameraman J.T. Alpaugh have had the
TV news chopper franchise all to themselves, thanks to restrictions placed
on the crowded airspace above the disaster zone.
To safeguard rescue aircraft shuttling through the area, the Federal
Aviation Administration on Tuesday directed the major networks ABC, CBS,
NBC, CNN and Fox to pick a single pool helicopter to gather video feeds.
Helinet, which was first on the scene with a sophisticated, high-definition
camera system mounted on its copter, got the job. "The aerials were
fantastic," said Marcy McGinnis, senior vice president of news coverage for
CBS News.
For Purwin and his staff, who had raced to New Orleans gambling on lining
up paying clients, the speculative venture turned into a business coup. But
Purwin said it wasn't about the money. He said the care and feeding of his
10-member crew, plus two satellite trucks and a copter, would chew up most
of the profit. The important thing, he said, is to convey through images
the enormity of the damage and the scale of recovery needs.
"This is beyond comprehension," Purwin said on a cellphone during a brief
refueling stop. "It's really hard to string the words together to sum up
what J.T. and I have seen since we got there Monday afternoon."
For Purwin, 44, the experience is sure to be an indelible milestone in a
flying career that began when he was a kid.
Just 18 when he got his first paid gig as a helicopter crop duster in
central Indiana, Purwin cofounded West Coast Helicopters in 1987. The
company became Helinet through a merger a few years later.
With a fleet of 50 copters, the company has amassed numerous screen credits
and transported thousands of organs for transplant surgeries at Los Angeles
area hospitals. Helinet also boasts of serving former presidents Clinton,
Bush, Reagan and Carter, as well as foreign heads of state. The company
also has ferried movie stars including Jim Carrey, Tom Cruise, Will Smith
and Cameron Diaz and executives of Fortune 500 companies.
Its biggest business, however, is leasing helicopters, equipment and crews
to nearly 30 television stations, including four in Los Angeles. The
company booked revenue of $21 million in 2003, but has not disclosed 2004
sales.
It hasn't always been an easy flight. In 1996, while filming a TV ad,
Purwin's partner Michael Tamburro was killed and Purwin himself was injured
when the copter he was piloting crashed. Two years ago, Helinet and its
insurers had to pay a $13-million jury award to a former KTTV-TV Channel 11
cameraman who suffered severe leg injuries in the crash of a leased copter.
For Helinet, heading to New Orleans was a spur-of-the-moment decision.
Purwin said he was returning from a family vacation in Hawaii late on Aug.
27 and was struck by reports of the hurricane bearing down on New Orleans.
With no way of knowing how bad the storm would actually be, he assembled a
crew the next day and decided to head out.
By last Monday afternoon, when Purwin and Alpaugh arrived by private jet in
Lafayette, La., a few hours after Katrina had roared through, their copter
and a satellite truck flown and driven down, respectively, from New York
were there to meet them.
Alpaugh, Helinet's chief technology officer, said that besides feeding
pictures to the networks, he had used the high-definition camera to zoom in
on stranded victims and report their locations to Coast Guard and National
Guard choppers. The rescuers "hoisting victims off roofs are doing the hero
work," Alpaugh said, but added: "I'd like to think that we've helped to
save lives."
He recalled what happened when they took up an officer for the New Orleans
Harbor Police, who saw that his neighborhood was completely underwater.
"The look on his face I will never forget," Alpaugh said. "His head dropped
into his hands and this grown man, this lieutenant of police, started to
weep
. We all got choked up. We felt the enormity of his situation, and
that everything he had worked for was gone."
================================
George Antunes, Political Science Dept
University of Houston; Houston, TX 77204
Voice: 713-743-3923 Fax: 713-743-3927
antunes at uh dot edu
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