A tragic accident on the set of The Twilight Zone movie claimed the lives of actor Vic Morrow and two child stars during a helicopter stunt scene gone wrong.
Director John Landis spoke to police enforcement after the fatal accident(Image: Getty)
A chilling accident on a high-profile Hollywood film set resulted in the shocking deaths of two children and the beheading of 1970s movie icon Vic Morrow.
The team were shooting for The Twilight Zone, co-helmed by silver screen giant Steven Spielberg – the mastermind behind ET, Jaws, Jurassic Park and Gremlins.
The fatal incident occurred during a helicopter flight scene at 2.20am, under the supervision of co-director John Landis, when seven-year-old Myca Dinh Le and six-year-old Renee Shin-Yi Chen tragically lost their lives alongside Vic Morrow, 53.
The sequence was being filmed at Indian Dunes, California, when an intended explosion unexpectedly damaged the helicopter’s rotor blades, leading it to crash into the river.
The horrific collision led to the gruesome decapitation of Morrow and Le, while young actor Chen was crushed; the children’s parents watched the terrifying scene unfold before them on July 23, 1982.
Six individuals aboard the helicopter during the crash suffered minor injuries. In the wake of the tragedy, both civil and criminal charges were brought against the staff overseeing the shoot, including director Landis.
Nevertheless, following a punishing nine-month court case, Landis alongside four other accused individuals were acquitted of involuntary manslaughter charges.
A collective of 16 distinguished filmmakers, featuring Francis Ford Coppola, Ron Howard, John Huston, George Lucas, Sidney Lumet and Billy Wilder, drafted a public statement voicing their backing for Landis.
Yet Spielberg chose not to sign alongside them. Speaking to the Los Angeles Times in April 1983, he declared: “No movie is worth dying for. I think people are standing up much more now than ever before to producers and directors who ask too much.
“If something isn’t safe, it’s the right and responsibility of every actor or crew member to yell ‘cut!’”
The relatives of Le and Chen launched civil proceedings and secured an out-of-court agreement for an undisclosed amount.
Additionally, the National Transportation Safety Board published its conclusions in October 1984, establishing the “probable cause of the accident was the detonation of debris-laden high-temperature special effects explosions too near a low-flying helicopter”.This had resulted in “foreign object damage to one rotor blade and delamination due to heat to the other rotor blade, the separation of the helicopter’s tail rotor assembly, and the uncontrolled descent of the helicopter”.
The report went on to state: “The proximity of the helicopter (around 25 feet off the ground) to the special effects explosions was due to the failure to establish direct communications and coordination between the pilot, who was in command of the helicopter operation, and the film director, who was in charge of the filming operation.”