The FAA has grounded all Bell 407 choppers, along with models 206A, 206B, 206L and all 426, due to a problem with some sort of a control mechanism. Most all major TV stations in the US fly one of the grounded models.
All Miami/Ft. Lauderdale stations use the 407 model. WPLG’s Sky10 was recently upgraded to it I believe and before that WSVN’s Skyforce was upgraded from 206B to 407. In Palm Beach both WPTV and WPEC also use Bell choppers.
Interestingly most stations in Los Angelis and a few other places fly Eurocopters.
/CBS4.com via Miami New Times/
Chopper 10 is back up. Saw them today.
I asked the people at CBS 4 how they were affected, and they said that the company that leases Chopper 4 to them has a hangar in South Florida. So, they were only without Chopper 4 for about three hours.