LOS ANGELES -- Director John Landis and four assistants pleaded innocent Friday to involuntary manslaughter in the deaths of actor Vic Morrow and two children in a helicopter crash during filming the 'Twilight Zone.'
Landis and his colleagues, flanked by attorneys, elbowed their way through a corridor packed with reporters and television cameras to the courtroom to hear charges handed down last week by the County Grand Jury.
Landis, who became one of Hollywood's most sought after directors after the smash hit 'Animal House,' and the others were released on their own recognizance after the brief arraignment.
'The accident was an overwhelming tragedy for many people,' Landis said in a brief statement to reporters inside the courtroom. 'It had a profound impact on our lives, and I know in my head and I know in my heart that we did not cause this accident.'
Ironically, the arraignment was held the day the 'Twilight Zone' made its nationwide premiere.
Landis was charged charged with five counts of involuntary manslaughter because he was charged with the death of each child twice. He was charged with causing their death by violating child labor laws and also by the reckless use of the helicopter.
Also indicted were special effects crew chief Paul Stewart, helicopter pilot Dorcey Wingo, associate producer George Folsey Jr. and unit production manager Dan Allingham.
Stewart and Wingo were charged with all three deaths because they are accused of using a helicopter in a reckless manner. Folsey and Allingham were only charged in the deaths of the two children because they were not involved in use of the helicopter but allowed the youngsters to work late at night near explosives.
Landis faces six years in prison, while the others face five-year terms if convicted. They were ordered to return to court Aug. 5 for a pre-trial hearing.
The indictment said the defendants killed the victims 'without malice but in the commission of a lawful act which might produce death in an unlawful manner and without due caution and circumspection.'
Morrow and child actors Renee Chin, 6, and Myca Dinh Le, 7, died instantly last July 23 when the helicopter plummeted to the ground during location filming in a remote canyon near Newhall.
Explosive charges -- part of the special effects -- apparently disabled the rear rotor of the craft and sent it spinning to the ground. Morrow, star of TV's 'Combat' series, was decapitated.
Another member of the film crew, special effects worker James Camomile, has reportedly been granted immunity in the case in return for testimony before the grand jury.
Camomile's testimony was considered crucial to the criminal investigation of the crash because it focused on who was responsible for the placement of the explosives that disintegrated a hut and caused the helicopter to spin out of control.
Earlier this week Landis' attorney, Harland Braun, said the scene in which Morrow was killed was not part of the film's original script and was added later to 'soften' Morrow's character.
He portrayed a cold-hearted racist in the film and Braun said Landis and others decided to 'humanize' Morrow by writing in the scene in which he rescued the two children from the burning hut.
The death scene is not in the movie and scenes with the children who died with Morrow were also removed from the final version.
