Twilight Zone accident

Twilight Zone: The Movie featured four segments. In the script for the first segment, "Time Out", character Bill Connor (Vic Morrow) is transported back in time to the Vietnam War, where he has become a Vietnamese man protecting two children from American troops. He then called a Vietnamese colleague, Daniel Lee, who had a young son named Myca. Myca was an outgoing boy who enjoyed posing for pictures, so his parents thought he would be interested. Chen testified that he was never informed that either of the children would be working near explosives, or even the helicopter. Le and Chen were being paid under the table to circumvent state law, which did not permit children to work at night. Landis opted not to seek a special waiver, either because he did not think that he would get permission for such a late hour or because he knew that he would not get approval to have young children in a scene with a large number of explosives. Casting agents were unaware that the children would be involved in the scene. Associate producer George Folsey Jr. told the children's parents not to tell any firefighters on the set that the children were part of the scene and hid them from a fire safety officer who also worked as a welfare worker. A fire safety officer was concerned that the blasts would cause a crash, but he did not tell Landis of his concerns. ==Accident==

The filming location was Indian Dunes, a movie ranch in the Valencia neighborhood of Santa Clarita, California, that was used throughout the 1980s in films and television shows. The location was within the studio zone, its wide-open area permitted more pyrotechnic effects, and it was possible to shoot night scenes without city lights being visible in the background. Indian Dunes' also featured a wide topography of green hills, dry desert, dense woods, and jungle-like riverbeds along the Santa Clara River which made it suitable to double for locations around the world, including Afghanistan, Myanmar, Brazil, and Vietnam. The night scene called for Morrow's character to carry the two children out of a deserted village and across a shallow river while being pursued by American soldiers in a hovering helicopter. The helicopter was piloted by Vietnam War veteran Dorcey Wingo. In an aircraft accident report, the National Transportation Safety Board subsequently wrote: At the trial, the defense claimed that the explosions were detonated at the wrong time. Randall Robinson was an assistant cameraman on board the helicopter who testified that production manager Dan Allingham told Wingo, "That's too much. Let's get out of here" when the explosions were detonated, but Landis shouted over the radio: "Get lower... lower!" Robinson said that Wingo tried to leave the area, but that "we lost our control and regained it and then I could feel something let go and we began spinning around in circles." Lydecker acknowledged that Landis might have been joking when he made the remark, but added, "I learned not to take anything the man said as a joke. It was his attitude. He didn't have time for suggestions from anybody." ==Investigation==

In October 1984, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) issued its report on the accident. The probable cause was the detonation of debris-laden high temperature special effects explosions too near to a low-flying helicopter, leading to foreign object damage to one rotor blade and delamination due to heat to the other rotor blade, the separation of the helicopter's tail rotor assembly, and the uncontrolled descent of the helicopter. The proximity of the helicopter to the special effects explosions was due to the failure to establish direct communications and coordination between Wingo, who was in command of the helicopter operation, and Landis, who was in charge of the filming operation. ==Aftermath==

The accident led to civil and criminal actions against the filmmakers that lasted nearly a decade. Le's father Daniel Lee testified that he heard Landis instructing the helicopter to fly lower. All four parents testified that they were never told that there would be helicopters or explosives on set, and they had been reassured that there would be no danger, only noise. Lee had survived the Vietnam War and immigrated with his wife to the United States, and he was horrified when the explosions began on the Vietnamese village set because it brought back memories of the war. Landis, Folsey, Wingo, production manager Allingham, and explosives specialist Paul Stewart were tried and acquitted on charges of manslaughter in a ten-month trial in 1986 and 1987. The defense maintained that the accident was "unforeseen and unforeseeable", and that the real culprit was a crew member who set off the explosives without looking at Wingo's helicopter. No one was prosecuted for illegally hiring Le and Chen, even though Landis, Folsey, and Allingham admitted to circumventing child labor laws. In the course of cross-examination, Wingo expressed his regret that Morrow had not looked up at the helicopter as he claimed that he had instructed him to do, stating that Morrow "had over five seconds between the time the sound of the helicopter changed and that impact." Deputy District Attorney Lea Purwin D'Agostino derided Wingo's comments, questioning how Wingo expected Morrow to have evaded the helicopter, observing that "Morrow was carrying the two youngsters in his arms while standing almost knee-deep in water as the helicopter... spun toward him." Morrow's family settled within a year; The program oversees motion picture and television industry use of pyrotechnic special effects in California. Landis spoke about the accident in a 1996 interview while discussing his career: "There was absolutely no good aspect about this whole story. The tragedy, which I think about every day, had an enormous impact on my career from which I may possibly never recover." Steven Spielberg co-produced Twilight Zone: The Movie with Landis, but he broke off their friendship following the accident. Spielberg said that the crash "made me grow a little" and left everyone who worked on the movie "sick to the center of our souls". "No movie is worth dying for. I think people are standing up much more now than ever before to producers and directors who ask too much. If something isn't safe, it's the right and responsibility of every actor or crew member to yell 'Cut! ==In popular culture==

The accident and criminal trial were later chronicled in episodes of both E! True Hollywood Story in 2000 and the docuseries Cursed Films in 2020. ==See also==