News

Choppergate: Nine News admits faking live cross from helicopter

Nine News faked a live cross from its chopper last night, when the aircraft was in reality on the helipad at its Brisbane headquarters. The network told Mumbrella it happened after bad weather forced the helicopter to return to base.

cameron price

Price

eva milic

Milic

The 6pm bulletin in Brisbane featured a live cross between presenter Eva Milic and reporter Cameron Price on board the Nine News chopper. Viewers were told in the caption that he was “near Beerwah”, the site where murdered Daniel Morcombe’s body was believed to have been found.

Becasue of the darkness outside, there were no external clues as to the helicopter’s whereabouts.

Rival networks Seven, Ten and the ABC are also based near the Nine helipad at Mt Coot-Tha. One of them filmed a Nine News chopper at one end of the helipad, in darkness, as Milic told viewers that Price was  “near the search site”.  

Beerwah is about 90km north of the Nine News helipad.

The video shows the helicopter turn its main lights on about 20 seconds after the live cross comes to an end before the chopper moves to the other end of the helipad.

A spokesman for Nine told Mumbrella:

“Our chopper was forced to divert from Beerwah due to bad weather, and air control instructed them to touch down.

“Seven know this because they have a camera permanently monitoring our pad.

“The decision was made by the pilot on safety grounds. The producer was unaware until it was too late to abort or delay the cross.”

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