Friend, Mentor : Colleagues Mourn Death of Wayne

They fly daily in the world’s most crowded skies, dodging other aircraft while keeping millions informed of the congestion on the troads far below them. They love their jobs for the freedom and the fraternity, but on Wednesday airborne traffic reporters were forced to acknowledge the darker side to their careers.

Bruce Wayne, a friend and father-figure to many of the Southland’s flying reporters, died early Wednesday when his plane crashed after his first broadcast of the morning. Hours later, his colleagues mourned his death and recounted the fears that plague nearly all of them.

“It’s going to be a great loss to the community,” said Pamela McInnes, a flying traffic reporter for radio station KMPC, who flew over the crash site Wednesday morning, not knowing that the charred wreckage below was Bruce Wayne’s plane.

McInnes drove to Fullerton to be with Lois Wayne after learning of the tragedy. McInnes described Bruce Wayne--who broadcast for KFI and KOST--as “the most professional (flying traffic reporter) on the West Coast. . . . He was totally dedicated to it, and with his 25-year anniversary coming up I don’t think anyone is going to come close to that.”

Lange Reminisces

Kelly Lange, currently an NBC television anchorwoman, was a friend and colleague of Wayne during her years as an airborne traffic reporter for KABC radio. By midday Wednesday, Lange had called KFI and reminisced on the air about the tightly knit fraternity of traffic reporters and the man she called “one of the nation’s noblemen.”

“We especially relied on Bruce because Bruce was so well-respected,” said Lange, who is not a pilot. “He was always solid, he was always there. . . . He’s always been one of the--God, I, I can’t believe it. . . . I just want to say I’ll miss him terribly.”

So will Cmdr. Chuck Street, airborne traffic reporter for FM radio station KIIS. Bruce Wayne was Street’s mentor when the younger man was hanging around Fullerton Airport trying to learn how to break into the business.

“He took a very fatherly attitude toward me,” Street said. “I’ll always be grateful to him . . . for taking the time to talk to me and afterwards congratulating me on actually achieving my goal.”

The airborne traffic reporters hold informal monthly gatherings at airports throughout the Los Angeles area where they swap stories and exchange information. Lange used to attend when she flew for KABC radio. Street and Dona Dower, KNX radio’s well-known flying reporter, also routinely attend the meetings. The next had been scheduled for Tuesday.

Through the memories and reflections of Wayne’s friends, there ran a tangible undercurrent of tension Wednesday. The death of one of their own reminded most of the airborne reporters of the dangers and stresses inherent in the jobs they love.

Bruce Wayne knew of the dangers firsthand. For nearly 25 years, he spent six hours daily in cramped space. “It’s very rewarding, but it’s darn difficult,” he said in an interview last January.

So did Lois Wayne, who is completing research for a book on airborne traffic reporters to be called “Asphalt Angels.” Nationwide, between 1965 and 1975, crashes killed an average of one such flying reporter per year, she said.

“In my mind, I would equate them as modern-day Pony Express riders: They’re rugged, adventuresome and they blazed their own path,” Lois Wayne said in an earlier interview. “At the same time they provide a very valuable service to the nation’s commuters. They are the unsung heroes. . . .”

Reminded of Pressures

KMPC’s McInnes is reminded daily of the pressures of being a flying traffic reporter.

“The combination of working a split shift (morning and late afternoon reports) and trying to fly and report and watch out for other aircraft and flying in the busiest aviation area in the nation--by the time Friday night comes, you’re ready for that weekend,” McInnes said.

Joe Green, who reports for Boston’s WBZ, flew with Bruce Wayne before Wayne left Boston for California. “It was a shock” to hear of his colleague’s death, Green said. “Bruce to me was not a flamboyant personality. He was a Mr. Cool. I can’t recall him putting himself in a position that there was any extra risk.”

Still, Green acknowledged, some risk is always there, and “there are some things you just can’t do anything about.”

“I’ve been doing this for 18 years,” he said, “flying for 35 years. People are only as old as they feel. I feel ooooold.”

To KIIS’s Cmdr. Street, the daily grind can be nerve-wracking.

“We’re not only listening to the radio station we work for but we’re also talking to the air traffic controllers, to staff in our own news rooms,” he said. “We’re monitoring the CHP scanner for accident reports as well as flying the aircraft and watching out for other planes and helicopters in the vicinity--all that in addition to meeting your deadline. It takes a lot out of you.”

Fear of Collision

But the specter of a collision is the greatest burden the “asphalt angel” carries around, Street said.

“I know for a fact it was Bruce’s (greatest fear),” Street said. “And stress is the biggest problem. You just try to pay attention as much as you can and avoid the areas that are the busiest.”

Wayne was the third Southern California airborne reporter to die in a fiery crash in the past 20 years. In Aug., 1966, a helicopter carrying KMPC’s Capt. Max Schumacher and two passengers collided with a police helicopter, spewing burning metal for a half a mile over Dodger Stadium.

It was Schumacher’s third crash in seven years of watching traffic from the sky. In 1958, the former fighter pilot steered his disabled helicopter into a tree rather than trying to make an emergency landing in a crowded Glendale schoolyard. He suffered a broken vertebrae. And six months before his death he escaped uninjured when the tail rotor assembly fell off his chopper and he crash-landed on a railroad embankment.

And in Aug., 1977, Francis Gary Powers, the U-2 spy plane pilot whose capture by the Soviets in 1960 sparked an international furor, died when his KNBC helicopter crashed in a field in Encino after apparently running out of fuel.

KIIS’s Street said he and his colleagues plan to fly in formation--with one aircraft missing--over Wayne’s funeral ceremony.

“You know, it’s a shame he didn’t go another six months, retire, write some books and talk about it,” Street said. “He was a wonderful aviator.”

Times staff writers Nancy Wride and Dennis McLellan contributed to this story.