Nevada’s last news chopper grounded

KSNV, the Sinclair-owned NBC affiliate in Las Vegas, is grounding its news helicopter — the only active one in the state.

The station, which has used “Sky 3” for 34 years, has opted out of using the chopper in the future.

Meanwhile, Kelly Curran, the station’s traffic reporter and meteorologist, is leaving the station for KCRA in Sacramento, California. Feb. 29, 2024, is her last day at the station.

She’d been at the station since 2015 and spent her final two years focused on aerial reports. 

At KCRA, she’ll be handling both news and weather reporting, occasionally using that station’s LiveCopter 3 as well as its broadcast-equipped SUV for coverage.

KSNV says it’s on the search for a replacement for Curran, but whoever takes over won’t have Sky 3 at their disposal. 

Sky 3, a Robinson R66, hasn’t flown since New Year’s Eve. It had been upgraded from an R44 in June 2023. 

“It was an expense that, heading into this year, we just couldn’t really justify,” KSNV General Manager Larry Strumwasser told the Las Vegas Review-Journal. “So that was the bottom line.”

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Like most stations, KSNV did not own Sky 3 outright.

Instead, it was owned and operated by Mar-Les Helicopter Service in Las Vegas. Patrick Edenfield piloted the helicopter, which had KSNV livery, but it was also available for other clients to hire as needed.

In this type of arrangement, stations often pay a fee to guarantee access to the vehicle and may also be charged for the time it uses the chopper, though it’s not clear what KSNV’s arrangement was. 

There’s no word on if, going forward, KSNV might continue to work with Mar-Les on an as-needed basis, a common practice with most TV stations who opt to no longer have a full-scale chopper lease arrangement. 

Many TV stations across the country have cut back on the expense of having helicopters at their disposal, instead opting to rent aircraft as needed or use drones. Some stations have also opted to split the expense of a chopper and share one with another one in the market.

They are still active in many larger markets, however, and are typically used to help show traffic snarls, bad weather and car or foot chases. 

In some cases, TV stations still retain branding such as “Sky 3” to refer to footage obtained via a rented chopper, even if it doesn’t have the station’s logo on the side or is even the same aircraft every time.