TV Show Wants to Stage Jet Crash

Despite safety concerns, a TV production company is negotiating with federal officials for permission to stage a jet crash in which an airliner rigged with explosives would slam into the Mojave Desert floor moments after the pilot and crew bail out.

The stunt, to be televised on the Fox network during a ratings sweeps period, was initially dismissed by federal regulators. But the plan appears to be gaining state and local support, and the Federal Aviation Administration says it is now seriously considering the plan--in part because there are no rules forbidding it.

“We’re in negotiations with the people involved, who have fairly good aviation credentials,” said Nick Lacey, director of flight standards for the FAA. “We are carefully reviewing each part of the proposal.”

State officials say they are also cooperating with the producers of the proposed show, called “Jumbo Jet Crash: The Ultimate Safety Test.” The producers are best known for such reality TV shows as “When Animals Attack” and “The World’s Most Shocking Moments Caught on Tape.”

The crash is planned for dried-up Dale Lake in San Bernardino County. The county Fire Department is designing a training exercise around the stunt--and hopes to be featured in the TV show.

Producers for Fox tried to enlist NASA to participate in the one-hour special to give the show a veneer of scientific research. Officials at the space agency balked.

“We’re not going to support something that looks sensational,” said Lee Duke, public affairs chief at NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center. “This crash is tabloid journalism.”

Environmentalists are appalled at the idea of making entertainment out of a large explosion in the Mojave Desert that could bury government-protected tortoises in their burrows and wipe out such rare plants as the desert lily.

“You can trash the environment and destroy a perfectly good airplane? What a statement,” said Jay Watson, regional director of the Wilderness Conservation Society. “This whole thing just doesn’t pass the laugh test.”

Having a pilotless plane laden with explosives fly over military bases and intentionally smash into the desert is a highly unusual proposal, FAA officials admit. Although they are cooperating, FAA administrators acknowledged misgivings.

“Our job is to keep planes aloft, not to bring them down,” said FAA spokeswoman Drucie Andersen.

Because of all the technical issues involved, it will take at least another month before the FAA decides whether to approve, reject or modify the proposal, Andersen said. There is no rule explicitly prohibiting an intentional plane crash, she noted.

There has been only one test crash of a jet airliner in the history of the FAA. During a demonstration of a new jet fuel by NASA engineers at Edwards Air Force Base in 1984, a remote-controlled passenger jet missed its target, skidded off course and exploded in a fireball, according to FAA archives.

Executives at Fox Broadcasting Co. have declined to discuss the details of the planned stunt show. Executives at Brad Lachman Productions, the Burbank company hired by Fox to produce the show, did not return phone calls.

Airpower Aviation Resources Inc., a West L.A.-based aerial stunt company, is the firm applying for FAA approval. Mike Patlin, Airpower’s president, would not comment on the crash proposal except to confirm that his company is working for Lachman Productions and that it recently bought a vintage Convair 990 jet for the stunt.

The four-engine plane, similar to a Boeing 707, is about 35 years old and has not moved since 1983, said Dan Sabovich, the Mojave Airport manager who sold the stunt company the plane for $150,000.

Under the application pending with the FAA, the Convair would take off from Mojave Airport at 5 p.m. Nov. 4 for a 34-minute flight to the crash site.

A Fox publicist said the network wants to push the stunt back to the February or May sweeps period, but FAA officials said they have not been notified about a date change.

Ever since TV Guide published a report on the crash idea Sept. 4, Fox executives have said little about the stunt. FAA officials were later quoted in news reports saying the agency doesn’t do test crashes and officials knew nothing about the plan.

At first, producers had wanted to launch the plane, rigged with fireworks and low-grade explosives to guarantee a cataclysmic finale, from Van Nuys Airport.

Los Angeles city fire inspector Larry Shipp rejected that idea.

“I wasn’t going to have a plane full of special effects go down in Reseda on my watch,” Shipp said.

The fireworks issue still may be a problem, FAA officials said. But the standard restriction against explosives aboard planes does not apply in this case because the flight is not commercial.

A pilot and two crew members, along with a parachute specialist, would fly the Convair 990 east toward Joshua Tree National Park, passing over Edwards Air Force Base and the Marine Corps training center near Twentynine Palms, according to the proposal.

Five miles before they reach the target, the pilot and crew would leap out of the plane with parachutes. The plane would then be flown via remote control toward Dale Lake, a 9-square-mile dry lake bed that sits on property owned by Superior Salt Mining Co.

Flying the plane via remote control is the most dangerous part of the proposal, FAA officials said, because there is a possibility that the plane could stray off course.

“We are going to lay a fairly high engineering standard against this project,” said Lacey, the FAA flight standards chief.

State fire officials are cooperating with the project. Hugh Council, head of the state fire marshal’s office overseeing film industry stunts, did not want to disclose the crash location, saying he did not want to jeopardize the production.

“If we let people know where the plane is coming down, we’ll get a whole crowd out there and we won’t be able to do the stunt,” Council said.

State fire officials agreed with the producers not to discuss the project with the public, Council said.

The San Bernardino County Fire Department, which must issue a film permit for the crash show, also likes the idea. Part of the plan is for San Bernardino firefighters to be on TV, extinguishing the blaze and cleaning up the wreckage.

“I can hardly wait to see this on TV,” said Gary Provansal, the battalion chief in charge of training.

Environmentalist groups, such as the Wilderness Conservation Society and local chapters of the Sierra Club, say they have discussed trying to block the stunt.

They are worried about fire from the wreckage, fuel spills and the impact a large explosion would have on plants and animals living in or near the lake bed.

Even if there is a way to crash a plane without hurting the desert ecosystem, said Dale Kunkel, professor of media policy issues at UC Santa Barbara, the stunt is still absurd.

“Destroying property with no other reason than to gawk at it sets a dangerous precedent for television,” he said. “How low have we sunk?”