Slip Occurs on ‘Twilight’ Crash Data : Jury Alerted to Previously Excluded U.S. Findings on Cause

To the delight of the prosecution, the jury in the “Twilight Zone” case was inadvertently alerted Thursday to the existence of previously excluded federal findings as to the probable cause of the helicopter crash that claimed the lives of three actors.

“I think the defense made a great point for me today . . .,” the prosecutor, Deputy Dist. Atty. Lea Purwin D’Agostino, said outside the courtroom, where director John Landis and four associates are on trial on involuntary manslaughter charges.

Testifying on cross-examination, George E. Hull, the chief fire safety officer during the filming of the final sequence, disclosed that the National Transportation Safety Board had said the low-flying helicopter spun out of control and went down during the July, 1982, Vietnam War scene after a rotor blade was hit by debris from special-effects explosions detonated too close to the aircraft.

Defense attorneys contend that actors Vic Morrow; Mica Dinh Lee, 7, and Renee Chen, 6, were killed after heat from a fireball caused the metal skin of the helicopter’s rear rotor blade to peel away. The lawyers have said their clients should not be held accountable for this “heat delamination” because it had never before been cited as the reason for any helicopter accident.

The prosecution had been prevented from bringing up the NTSB’s conclusions because of federal regulations barring safety board employees from testifying about their opinions.

Hull’s testimony came on his second day on the witness stand, while Eugene L. Trope, the attorney for pilot Dorcey A. Wingo, was asking the retired Los Angeles County firefighter if he knew what caused the accident.

Attorneys for both sides in the Los Angeles Superior Court case agree that Hull was apparently referring to a March, 1984, report by the safety board. The agency later revised its findings, saying that the accident was probably caused by both debris and delamination.

D’Agostino said she believed that Trope’s tactical error was significant “to the extent that the defense has been making a big to-do about the fact that one of the blades was delaminated. . . . They’re saying (the accident) was completely unforeseeable.”