when he was doing his wing over and he was coming straight to the ground, i m thinking at that point, i hope he can pull out of this. i was already aligning the machine for the next maneuver. it just struck the ground. son of a [ bleep ]. call 911! i thought that was it. he was gone. but dennis is not dead. merely stunned. how did he get here? the aircraft broke up about me and the glass shattered and i was in the desert dust. everybody was in shock. i mean, it was a moment of total, oh my god, what do we do. dennis is not out of danger. he struggles to get free of the wreckage before dripping fuel can ignite the helicopter. i m going to die if i don t get out of this quickly, if it catches on fire. he quickly shuts off the fuel lines, then amazingly, he crawls out of the chopper, shaken but only slightly hurt. he actually wasn t even hurt that bad.
world class pilot makes a nearly fatal mistake. i m going to die if i don t get out of this quickly. dennis kenyon, a former british royal air force pilot, is a legendary flyer who has logged thousands of hours aloft. i m up to 14,000 flying hours. i ve flown 124 different types of airplane which includes 34 helicopters. his aeronautic skills are on display in numerous feature films. i ve done, i don t know, probably a couple dozen feature films. i did spy who loved me, blackhawk down. and he serves as a flight safety expert. my job is going around, looking at shows, and making certain they are safe and watching other pilots. what he s most famous for is helicopter aerobatic flying.
since 1986, dennis has been a leading competitor, winning the world championship in 1992. one of the cups up there behind me is for the first place. dennis skills are on display at an air show in utah in june of 2008, and one person eager to see it, and videotape it, is tina tyler, an american gyrocopter pilot. i packed up my gyro and headed out to utah with my camera in hand. for dennis, there s a setback at the beginning of the event. the helicopter, a schweitzer, is unfamiliar and it s heavier than he s used to. i normally fly with ten gallons on board, which weighs 80 pounds, 72, in fact, and i had 30 on board, three times the weight. as dennis takes off, he s aware of another element that will have a major impact on his performance. the air park had two things going for it. it was high and it was hot, 96 degrees that day.
one of the cups up there behind me is for the first place. dennis skills are on display at an air show in utah in june of 2008, and one person eager to see it, and videotape it, is tina tyler, an american gyrocopter pilot. i packed up my gyro and headed out to utah with my camera in hand. for dennis, there s a setback at the beginning of the event. the helicopter, a schweitzer, is unfamiliar and it s heavier than he s used to. i normally fly with ten gallons on board, which weighs 80 pounds, 72, in fact, and i had 30 on board, three times the weight. as dennis takes off, he s aware of another element that will have a major impact on his performance. the air park had two things going for it. it was high and it was hot, 96 degrees that day. both those factors spelled danger for a pilot. in utah, it s about 5,000 feet elevation and it was a warm day that day. this creates a condition called high density altitude,
crash, at least ten american and european pilots died doing this maneuver in air shows. so dennis survival is astounding. i think it s pretty miraculous that he walked away from this crash. how hard he hit that ground. i wish i was religious, but if there was a god, it s got to be him. dennis recovery is so quick, he s able to get back into the game, performing at another world competition later that same year. that s where i got fourth this time. so, still got in. as these cameras have shown us, a brush with death could be closer than most of us would like to think. it can come to those who court it and those who take every precaution to avoid it. it visits the novice and the world-class champion. but if you re lucky enough to cheat death, it s not such a bad thing if your little miracle is caught on camera for all to see. i m contessa brewer. that s all for this edition of caught on camera.