I will eventually edit out the part of video of ground where lam heading over to closer to crash to see if I could help but I really almost never edit so for now this portion will remain as I don’t want to mess it up.
To the many who have commented things such as “the cameraman had one job and he messed it up by turning away when helicopter made impact” and calling me nasty things among many other very rude and insensitive comments…… These comments are not hurtful to me as I simply feel sorry for the people writing them for feeling they need to criticize something they know nothing about and for the way society has become as this type of commentary is fairly common on social media.
I was there as an aviation enthusiast and not on a job as a cameraman to cover a helicopter crash as it was happening. I was primarily taking pictures of the twelve helicopters scheduled to arrive that day and had attached my cell phone on top of my DSLR camera (which is new technique to me) to maybe have some useful video. I did not imagine this would result in a video that would have over two million views on my YouTube channel (so far) and have clips broadcast by many both local and national networks.
I turned away at the point of impact briefly as I saw a large helicopter part (tail rotor and gear box) detach midair and fly toward myself and crowd landing maybe 75 feet from me. It was also my natural reaction to briefly turn away as I thought there may be an explosion with pieces flying everywhere. This all happened unexpectedly in a few seconds.
Please consider subscribing to my YouTube channel when you watch this video or any of the other 16 that are on my YouTube playlist that I took after this unfortunate incident.