Return to Flight Status

Yesterday was my first day back in the skies for quite some time. The reason for my absence is not important, but it suffices to say, you don't know how much you enjoy something until its not there. That is an absolute when it come to my time aboard Chopper 9.

Chopper 9 Pilot Guiv readies for takeoff

I could hardly wait to get back in my seat, camera control panel on my lap, but the News Gathering Gods would not cooperate. I had to settle for a single beauty shot for the 6. It didn't matter, it was just good to be in the air.

I retired for the evening after the show flight, grateful for the ride. I hoped that something would happen this week that would warrant the unique features of news hunting from the sky.
At 10:57PM I would get my answer.

That answer came in the form of a phone call from my Ops Manager, requesting I get my ass out of bed at first light to fly over a high voltage power pylon that had collapsed into the Fraser River near the Port Mann Bridge. The lines were in the river and several other pylons were now in jeopardy of collapsing.

Needless to say 5am comes pretty quick and I managed to get myself in for a 6am flight to the incident. As we took off, again I was reminded of just how much I enjoy this gig.
We soon got a look at just what a problem this downed hydro tower was to the area. Authorities closed the Port Mann Bridge, a main crossing from the city of Surrey to the south side of the Fraser. Commuters   from the Fraser Valley going to Vancouver now have to detour to other bridges and via otherwise quite neighbourhoods to get to Vancouver.
The situation is one of "Traffic Armageddon". One radio report says "If you can work from home, then stay home." Who knew a simple downed line could cause such a mess.

A shot from my window of the downed Hydro Pylon

We flew over the scene along with all the other regular "traffic watch" aircraft. We did not have any particular show that we needed to service, but we gathered tape and the boys back at the station were ingesting our feed for items for the 5 and 6.
We flew for about 90 minutes when word came that the Bridge was about to be reopened. We stuck around for a bit longer and sure enough the trickle of vehicles slowly became a torrent across the Bridge.
I am sure we will be back on the scene before the end of the day and again for the 5 and 6.
Its not as sexy as a land slide or a riot or a big fire, but hey its a living and I love it!

I'll be blogging on a regular basis form here on in and as time goes on and I work the rust off of the keyboard. I hope to give you the reader some entertainment and perhaps some insight of what it is like to be in the chase as we try to bring stories to our viewers.

The Road

It has been quite a year, so where do I begin. I suppose I should start with an explanation as to my prolonged absence from adding to this blog.
I had every intention of taking you, the reader, through my Olympic experience as I covered the 2010 Winter Olympic Games from high above Vancouver aboard Chopper 9. Issues outside of my professional life, have, without divulging details, conspired against my motivation to write. I am hoping that I will overcome this as I do miss telling stories on this medium.

So how do I start again? It starts with a first sentence and paragraph, so please allow me to begin to tell you of my experiences during the most turbulent, yet rewarding and adventuresome assignment of my career, The Road to Vancouver 2010 and the 2010 Winter Olympic Games.

Lets set the "wayback' machine for October of 2009- dateline Victoria, British Columbia.

I was part of a massive CTV Crew that was sent to Victoria to begin coverage of the arrival of the Olympic Flame on Canadian soil. My particular assignment was at the CFB Victoria, where the aircraft carrying the delegation of VANOC, Government and Canadian Olympic Committee members as well as a special lamp in which a flame burned ever so small, yet ever so powerful. That little orange glow had been ignited on the slopes of Mount Olympus in an ancient Greek Ceremony, had now, with the watchful eyes of a team of Aboriginal Flame Guardians, about to ignite a nation.
It was my privilege to witness and experience it. The Torch Relay which meandered through out this country will forever be one of the highlights of my television career.

The SAT Truck outside the hangar as we await DAY 1 of the Torch Relay

That first day of the Torch Relay certainly had its moments. It began for me and my crew at 1 am. We were the location crew for CTV Canada AM. Man their crew calls are early. We set up camera positions and ran our lines to several positions so the network would not miss a beat.
Sarah G was our location reporter and would do a number of "prep" scene setter hits to tease and engage the audience to Stay with CTV for every minute of coverage as we begin this final stage leading to Vancouver 2010.

CTV Reporter Sarah Galashan as she readies for her hit into Canada AM

Word would come via Vanoc people, that the plane was delayed. This I am sure would cause certain stroke like symptoms for those further up the CTV Programming chain of command. I had learned a very long time ago not to worry about such things, that I should only concern myself with my camera position and making sure that my part of the greater picture is the best it possibly can be.

There was much gnashing of teeth with our field producer Jeff. No doubt, some of those stroke symptoms were beginning to manifest themselves to poor ol' Jeff. Finally the plane landed and the excitement and anticipation of what was to be an historic day was very measurable with the crowd that had come to the Hangar.

CTV Canada AM Field Producer Jeff Tam go "Black-tical" as we await the landing

But the wait continued. After what seemed like an eternity , the door of the aircraft opens and the deligation with its flaming cargo emerges. Things will happen very quickly now. The "Flame" is being carried by a specially designed miner's lamp, makes it's way to a podium inside the hangar where a short ceremony ensued. Then all at once it was over and onto Day 1 of the 2010 Olympic Torch Relay.

After a quick debrief into the show, with National Affairs Correspondant Lisa LaFlamme, who travelled with the "Fire" from Greece, my Live duties were over and now a quick strike and reposition to our down town Victoria position for supper hour broadcasts into the Network and our Local, but that would come some 7 hours later. Our crew took a couple of hours to get some shut eye until our next Crew Call at 2PM.

My duties now would center on editing on a new HD disc to disc editing system that had never been used in actual field conditions. The fun was about to begin, and when I say fun, I really mean the stuff that hits a fan. I feel a repeat of the edit caos that defined my Torino Olympic experience. With the eyes of our network firmly on us , we would need to bring our A game. It would be a challange that would relish and it would make the beginning of the final leg of the Journey that would make or break us as a team, as we covered the biggest event in our Station's , dare I say the Network's history.

I will have more to come, in the days and weeks ahead.

The Countdown Is On.

Happy New Year everyone and welcome to 2010. This will be a monumental year for many. This is a year that I have been personally preparing for for some time. In just under 6 weeks the 2010 Winter Olympic Games begin in Vancouver,British Columbia a city I now call home.

This very blog began 4 years ago when I decided after being assigned as part of a Non- Rights Holding crew to cover stories relating to the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy. I wanted to bring each of my colleagues at CTV with me to that assignment, so the "Blog" would help facilitate that- World Wide Murman Adventures in News Gathering was born.

This time around, I am part of a Rights Holder- CTV- so I expect the experience to be different than that of the Torino Games.

As we count down to the Opening Ceremonies and continue into the Games themselves, I again want to bring you all along for the ride. You won't get scores or results, there are plenty of places to do that. I will however attempt to give you a perspective of someone behind or in my case ABOVE the scenes.

My 2010 Olympic Experience began more that a year ago at a general staff meeting at the home office on Robson and Burrard in Vancouver (CTV British Columbia). We were all told of a process by which each of us could apply to an "Olympic Consortium" which was headed by CTV, for Olympic assignments covering the games. During the meeting there were many questions asked by staff. Some were answered, some would be answered at a later date. But the opportunity was given, it was now up to me to apply.

And apply I did. My goal was to be a part of a national Rights Holding broadcast team and to have a different Olympic experience than my time 4 years ago.
As luck would have it, I made the team as did 6 of my colleagues. Now all I needed to know is what my particular assignment would entail. Would it be a mountain assignment- Skiing was asked during the application process- could it be speed skating- the Olympic Oval in Richmond is just down the street from the Chopper 9 hangar and was one of the jewels of the new competition venues - or could it be general assignment news gathering or field production.
I would not "officially" know until December of 2009.

Just over a month ago, my email informing me of my assignment arrived. I was assigned to be the CTV/Rogers Olympic Consortium's "Helicopter Camera Operator".
Wow, I have never met anyone who has covered an Olympic Games from the air. I wanted a unique Olympic Games Assignment, and I got one. Lets just hope the weather is good for flight operations.

Now the countdown is on.

The Cable Song-"Who's gonna tell our stories when the story tellers gone"

You may remember a fellow by the name of David Carroll. He was the fellow that took on United Airlines after they dammaged-check that- broke his guitar. He went public after getting the run-a-round from the folks at United and struck back with his song and video "United Break Guitars".
Well David is back and this time this Troubadour of Maritime ilk is coming out in suport of LOCAL TELEVISION. You gotta like that, well at least I do.
So for your viewing pleasure may I present David Carroll and "The Cable Song".
Enjoy.


">


Brillant

Summer of Fire

We returned from our Kelowna deployment late Tuesday. Now we again find ourselves preparing Chopper 9 to go into yet another fire. Yes the fire season is firmly upon us. This time we are preparing to fly to the town of Lilooet British Columbia. A small fire there has grown to a large fire and evacuations could be imminant.

Word also this morning that a fire that we had flown on earlier this week near Terrace Mountain has grown to be a monster. There are now 2200 people in a nearby town on evacuation order. We still have crews on the ground in the area but the NOTAM has been modified to 12000 ft above and 5 mile around the fire.


The mission to Lilooet will not involve us overnighting at this point.
There is lightning in the forecast, this could be the mother of all fire seasons.

We're In!

Chopper 9 waits on the flightline with other helicopters at the Kelowna Airport

The call came shortly after 2PM.

"Murman, standby to copy frequency and code information"

The sound of the two-way startled me out of a daydream of happier times. I looked over at Guiv our pilot who suddenly came to life on his easy chair in the Pilots lounge at the Shell hangar.

"This is it, we're in." I said as I fumbled for my note pad to copy down the numbers. We had been waiting for a good part of the day waiting to gain access into the restricted airspace to gather tape of the fire areas being attacked from the sky.

Guiv climbs into Chopper 9 as we prepare to fly into the Fire zone.

We soon found ourselves in the air and heading into the fire zone.

There were a number of bucketing helicopters working the fire. We watched from our position above the firefighting helos.

I am working the FLIR camera and attempting to acquire targets to put to tape.

This is what we flew to Kelowna for, access into and around the fires. Up until now we have been relegated to the outer limits. As a guy who loves to get right in there, it was kind of difficult to be waiting for a call while the fire rages just a few miles away. But no matter we are in and now we can do what we came here to do - shoot directly above the fire.

A shot out my window as fly over the Glenrosa fire scene.

Mission accomplished.

Day 2 Kelowna Fires

We are now into day two. At least the smoke has cleared somewhat. We began the day with a full crew meeting to discuss and comeup with a game plan. We have a number of people here on the ground in Kelowna to cover these fires.

We are still working our forestry contacts to gain access into the restricted airspace. But for now we recon-ed all three fires from just outside the NOTAM restrictions.
It was a productive flight. We were able to get the first shots of the Terrace Mountain Fire. This fire is located about 20 miles to the northwest of Kelowna. This fire is not threatening any structures, but has produced most of the troublesome smoke that plagued flight operations yesterday.

This is a shot the Terrace Mountain Fire some 20 miles to the North of Kelowna.

Another shot as taken from my crew window of the Terrace Mountain Fire north of Kelowna. This non interface fire is producing most of the smoke in the Kelowna area and has ground crews observing its behaviour.

We continued to fly around the backside of it and headed to the backside of both Rose Valley and Glenrosa fires. Smoke on the back side was such that it made shooting from this position unfeasible.

This is a look from the east side of Lake Okanagan looking at the Glenrosa fire. This fire is an interface fire and has more than 11,000 people displace due to evacuation orders.

The flight was not a write off. We did return with shots of each fire location that will no doubt find their way to air during the cast this evening.

Hopefully we will have been able to get clearance to enter the fire zone at a reduce altitude and deliver some killer material for the team.

The Wait

We have been on the ground making calls and attempting to coordinate with the Air Ops side of the Forestry Service.
With the fire less than 24 hours old we are understandably low in the priority que at the moment.


The current flight restrictions around the area are 7000ft and below to the south of the Kelowna Control Tower due to smoke and air operations around the fire. As you get closer to the fire sites themselves the NOTAM (Notice to AirMen) calls for a 5 miles radius with a 9000 ft altitude restriction.

A look at the fire activivity as we lift off from the Kelowna airport earlier this morning

At around 11:00 we did a recon flight with these restrictions. We were able to get some shots of fire activity from a distance at an altitude of 7000. When we attempted to go to the 9000 ft level, smoke and cloud made further shooting unfeasible. We returned to our base at the Kelowna Airport to again wait.

Another medium helicopter arrives for potential hire by Forestry to support Fire operations.

I have noticed a number of medium helicopters arriving in the past two hours. They are all here with buckets awaiting to be contracted by Forestry to provide air support over the fire. They too sit and play the waiting game.

FIRE!

This has been a flight week that can be described in one word - FIRE.

House fire, boat fires and as I sat down to a chicken BBQ with my son, the phone rang with word of another fire. This time of the forest variety and it is serious. The call was to prepare the deployment of Chopper 9 and her FLIR broadcast camera to Kelowna.
The last time I got a call like this for Kelowna was during the hot dry summer of 2003 when a wild fire ripped through the outer parts of town destroying hundreds of homes and causing millions of dollars of dammage.

As we left at dawn to the fire zone, word of 12 homes already lost and thousands of people evacuated. The situation is very fluid at this moment and now that we have arrived we are awaiting further instructions.

The smoke rises into the horizon as we transit to Kelowna. This plume is from a second fire in the Kelowna area near the Rose Valley Dam.

A look from 8000 ft as we fly past the Glenrosa fire West Kelowna. This blaze was discovered on Saturday afternoon has already forced thousands to be evacuated and reports indicate as many as 12 structures have been destroyed.

A shot of the smoke lingering in the air as we fly into Kelowna

I shall attempt to keep updating with photos and give you an idea of what it is like to cover a wild fire from a news gathering helicopter.
But for now we wait.
For the most up to date information please go to the ctv web site by following the link http://www.ctv.ca/ and click on CTV British Columbia.

For now we sit and wait at the Kelowna airport until we coordinate with Fire Flight Operations.

Death from Above

After a much needed and restful vacation, I have returned back to the News Gathering fold with a double duty in the skies over Vancouver. Kinda nice really, flying the clear skies of summer. Now if only we could get ourselves a big story- err- big visual story.
My recent tours of duty in the clouds have produced very little in the "Big Story" catorgory. Instead I seemed to be doomed to flying minimum hours during our show and providing what we call in the business "bumper and weather alminac" shots for the broadcast. It can ware on "story hunter" like myself as over time you begin to feel like you have lost the edge or are just cursed.
But coming back from 3 weeks away from the grind, where I only gathered sand and sun, I had found new energy and enthusiam for what is is I do.

That said, Monday was like most, a couple of flights to check out potential calls that could yield what I had been yearning for. They turned out to be routine, nothing to write home about.
But it was on my flight on Tuesday during the show, I was to witness something that will stay with me for a long time.



We were over the PNE grounds in east Vancouver when my Blackberry began to vibrate wildly. Nodoubt Gregg, our ears on the desk, had something he wanted us to check out. Just as the device began to gyrate around the console, the two-way radio cracked with Gregg's voice asking me to check the message and head there asap.
It seems there had been a crash on the 99 near the 91 interchange. Usually these things are nothing more that shots of twisted wreckage and a line of motorists trying to get home to thier families. But this would be different.

It took us a bit longer than usual to get into the airspace over the scene because of a number of things, not the least of it being the location was next to a very busy airport at Boundry Bay.

I was able to survey the scene from a distance and see a medivac helicopter landing on the highway. I thought if nothing else the heli evacuating a victum will make this assignment visual.
Once granted direction into the airspace we took a position over the scene. I used my lens to get in close to assess what was hapening below.

It looked like two vehicles, both with heavy damage and EMT crews working feveroushly to free a trapped person. As I zoomed closer I could see the rescuers free the individual and place them onto a stretcher. The Paramedics working hard on this person. A flurry of activity and an immage of them administering CPR.


"This is bad" I said to our pilot. "They are doing chest compressions on the victim."
This was nothing that any photog worth his time has not seen before. I too was no different, I had over the years seen many scenes like this unfold before my lens. Each one of them was personal. But somehow being at 1500ft somehow makes covering scenes like this impersonal, clinical, detached. Bomber crews from the 40's describe this same detachment from thier enemy.


"We are coming to you in 30 seconds" a voice belonging to Jimmy our man back at CTV Control.
I widen out slightly so as not to reveal a licence plate number or something that could potentially cause this person's family (if they were watching) to identify thier loved one.

The scene was very desperate below. A team of skilled people doing everything to save a life.


They came to us and I slowly zoomed into the scene. Not too close, but close enough to see the drama unfold.
Suddenly my headset rings with Jimmy's voice, "Clear!"

Now we were off the air and as we repositioned the aircraft and my lens left the scene below, an other scene revieled itself just a kilometer or so to the north. More carnage on the 99. This time it appeared as though there were 4 vehicles involved. I relayed the information to the show producer. We did not know at the time, but these two scenes were related.

I panned the the FLIR camera back to the dire site where paramedics were doing thier thing. I zoomed in close to give me any indication of what was happening. Then all at once, the body language of those on the ground, heads and shoulders down, indicated the battle to save a life was lost. Chest compressions had stopped. Urgency was now gone. Two firefighters covered the person with a sheet. All of it captured within my viewfinder.

My God, I had just witnessed someone's death at 1500 ft.

It was a quiet flight back to base, one I will not forget.
As I starred out of my window, I said a little prayer for the family of that person and for those men and women who tried so hard to save a stranger's life.

As it turned out the victim was an elderly lady who had some how ended up traveling at speed on the wrong way of the freeway. The other scene to the north was caused by someone trying to avoid her car. It has sparked a debate about testing drivers of an advanced age.