As its helicopter hovered above the scene, WGN-Channel 9 broke in with the news this morning that an airplane had crashed onto Martin Luther King Drive on the South Side, breaking off a wing that had skidded down the road and hit a car.
But three minutes later, the station reported back that the crash was actually a scene being shot for the TV series "Chicago Fire."
"We are just getting word that this is being shot as part of a TV show," anchor Larry Potash told viewers.
"Are you kidding me?" said anchor Robin Baumgarten. "They might want to tell the news folks that they're doing this and shutting down King Drive. Are you kidding me? Are you kidding me? 29th and King Drive, it's OK. It's all for a TV show, even though you see that plane in the road."
Police and fire officials report that other stations also called them about what looked like a major story unfolding at King and 29th Street, though Channel 9 apparently was the only one to go with the story around 8 a.m.
Jennifer Graves, vice president and news director of ABC-Channel 7, said the station's assignment desk heard about the "crash" between 7:30 a.m. and 8 a.m. She said the station’s helicopter arrived on the scene a few minutes before 8 a.m.
“Within five minutes of getting our helicopter there, we confirmed with the fire department that it wasn’t a real crash scene,” she said.
The Fire Department tweeted this alert after Channel 9 aired the story: "Chicago TV News is reporting a plane down at. . .King Drive this is a filming for the NBC show Chicago Fire and is a simulation disregard"
Larry Langford, a spokesman for the Chicago Fire Department, said information about the staged plane accident was not widely distributed. "It looks like it didn't get filtered down to everybody." Even some patrol officers could be heard on scanners this morning asking their supervisors about a plane crash.
Rich Moskal, director of the Chicago Film Office, said the local community was notified of the fake crash.
"To be honest, 'Chicago Fire' is out on the street filming nearly every day and we didn’t see this any differently than the standard filming," he said. "The local community was notified so there weren’t any surprises there. We notify residents by knocking on doors, leaflets, talking to people directly in the community who live within the close proximity to the filming area.”
Langford said steps will be taken to improve communications. "In the future, I'm asking my people to let me know so I can let the media know. News desks need to know," Langford said. "I'm sure from the helicopter it looked like it was real."
Footage from Channel 9's helicopter showed a white single-engine plane buckled in the middle of King Drive, its left wing hundreds of yards away at the side of the road. It was surrounded by police cars and an ambulance. Several cars appeared to have been hit by the plane.
The station had been alerted by dozens of callers and quickly swung its helicopter over the scene as it made repeated calls to fire officials. Potash and Baumgarten reported what they could see from the helicopter's skycam, at one point noting the lack of ambulances and urgency.
Within a few minutes, the anchors reported that the crash was not real and used the episode as a running joke during the rest of the show.
"So really, it's a good news story, which is what the people are always looking for," Potash said. At another point, he observed, "It's for a show that nobody watches on NBC."
Later, when Baumgarten switched to traffic reporter Erin McElroy, she added: "Erin, King Drive might be blocked near 29th, but it's OK."
WGN-TV is owned by Tribune Co., which is also parent company of the Chicago Tribune.
