Pilot-Reporter Appeals FAA’s License Revocation : Television: The agency charged Robert Tur with ‘careless and reckless behavior’ in his coverage. He terms the decision ‘a witch hunt.’

Robert Tur, a helicopter pilot and reporter for KCOP Channel 13 and KNX-AM (1070), filed an appeal Thursday to overturn the revocation of his pilot certificate by the Federal Aviation Administration. Tur called the action “a witch hunt and a lynching” that resulted from his aggressive and often critical reporting about the regulatory agency and Los Angeles agencies.

Tur’s license was revoked on an “emergency” basis six weeks ago after the FAA alleged five counts of “careless and reckless behavior.” At a two-day hearing last week, William R. Mullins, an administrative law judge from the Federal Transportation Safety Board, upheld two of these counts, both stemming from incidents that occurred in 1988.

Tur, who has continued to report for both KCOP and KNX using other pilots to fly his helicopter while he shoots the video, filed his appeal to the full safety board. (Previously, when Tur was piloting the helicopter, he used his wife, Marika, to operate the camera.)

The FAA also appealed one of the charges that was overturned--the only one that occurred this year--and Mullins’ decision not to consider three new charges that the agency attempted to introduce just before the hearing last week.

Elly Brekke, spokeswoman for the FAA, said that the agency is appealing to get these new charges introduced now in part because one of the charges alleges that Tur was at the controls of his helicopter over the site of the Elizabeth Taylor wedding last month, after his license had been revoked. Tur said that he was shooting pictures of the wedding but was not flying the helicopter.

Jeff Wald, news director at Channel 13, testified on Tur’s behalf at the hearing and told The Times that “Tur is one of the safest pilots around.” Bob Sims, news director at KNX, said that his station also would continue to use Tur’s reports.

Wald said that Tur’s aggressive personality has “aggravated” many competitors and public officials because he often beats them to the scene.

Mullins upheld a count that alleged Tur flew his helicopter so low over the 1988 Redondo Beach Pier fire “as to cause smoke and heat to blow onto firemen who were on the pier fighting the fire, thereby temporarily blinding them.” The other count he upheld alleged that in August, 1988, Tur followed a fire department rescue helicopter that was carrying an injured policeman to the hospital so closely that he caused the pilot of the other helicopter to alter his planned course “to avoid what would have been a collision with (Tur’s) aircraft . . . thereby extending the time taken before the injured policeman could receive emergency medical care.”

In the first instance, Tur contended that it was other news helicopters and not his that were flying too low in Redondo Beach. In the other, he said that flight logs showed he was not flying his helicopter that night.

Tur has been a vocal critic of the FAA. He has complained publicly about the agency’s failure to require the marking of power lines in canyons. He reported almost immediately last February that an FAA traffic controller had guided a U.S. Air jetliner into a collision on the ground with a Sky West commuter plane at Los Angeles International Airport. And in 1987, he reported that the FAA had “steered Dean-Paul Martin into a mountain.”

“When I go up as a reporter, public agencies are always telling me we don’t want you covering the story and try to order me out of the area,” Tur said. “But if it’s not legally restricted, I won’t abide by it. Other pilots (flying helicopters for the other news stations are not reporters) and they often will obey these restrictions. That is why I’m such a danger.”