Fire Inspector Says He Would Have Denied Permit for ‘Twilight’ Stunt

A Fire Department official in charge of granting movie-set safety permits testified Thursday that he would probably not have approved one for the producers of the “Twilight Zone” film if he had been told that special-effects explosives were to be ignited under bamboo huts on the set.

But the witness, Los Angeles County Fire Inspector De Witt Morgan, added that he did not believe such explosives--designed to created fireballs 100 feet high--would have proven dangerous to a hovering helicopter or actors who were not situated close to the huts.

Later, outside court, Morgan said that he had been deceived by the film makers about where the explosives were to be located. But at the time of the permit-granting process, his primary concern in keeping the devices away from the huts was not for the helicopter, but in consideration of fire safety in the surrounding brushy terrain at the Valencia-area filming site.

Director John Landis and four associates are charged with manslaughter in the 1982 deaths of star Vic Morrow and two child actors, who were struck by a low-flying helicopter that spun out of control when hit by a fireball from special-effects explosives.

The prosecution contends that the defendants exhibited gross negligence by placing the helicopter, explosives and actors in the same scene. The defense maintains that the accident was unforeseeable because a special-effects expert, granted immunity by the prosecution, mistakenly ignited the explosives before the helicopter was safely out of the way.

“Mr. Morgan was specifically deceived,” said the prosecutor, Deputy Dist. Atty. Lea Purwin D’Agostino, who called the 30-year firefighter’s statements key testimony.

Defense attorney Arnold L. Klein agreed that the testimony was “dynamite.” But he said the statements should help the defense, since Morgan acknowledged that the explosives would not have been dangerous to the helicopter if it had been in its proper position.

Morgan’s testimony came as the increasingly acrimonious trial concluded its fifth week of testimony.

Earlier in the day, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Roger W. Boren publicly ordered attorneys for both sides to stop calling each other names during private sessions at the bench. In one such instance this week, Klein called D’Agostino “a boob.”

The prosecutor, meanwhile, has complained to Boren that during a closed session she had to admonish defense counsel James F. Neal not to point at her.

And Neal asserted that D’Agostino had twice sighed in the direction of jurors while he was cross-examining a witness. The prosecutor denied it, adding: “I hope it’s OK if I breathe, counsel.”

Boren said he had not seen either incident, but he warned against future gestures by the attorneys.

Later, outside court, Klein emphasized to reporters that he could continue calling D’Agostino a “boob,” if he did not do it in court.

“I’d call her stronger things,” he added, “if the newspaper would print it.”

A transcript of a closed session earlier this week also revealed that D’Agostino voiced new allegations that some witnesses in the case who are involved in the film business may be “fudging” in their testimony for fear of being blackballed in Hollywood.

“There is a tremendous fear on the part of these people to come forward and really tell the complete truth,” she said.

The allegation was emphatically denied by Neal.

Boren, meanwhile, commented, “I think reasonable minds could argue about a lot of things like that and we are not going to do it.”