Klein/Ally Show: The Podcast - Stu Mundel Talks About the Recent Helicopter Crash

Episode Date: September 17, 2026

We'll get into an episode of Klein Alley Show in just a moment, but in the meantime, let's tell you about our absolute favorite place on the planet. Yep, that would be San Bernardino International Airport, where you can go through the airport process without waiting in long lines and overpaying for parking. Quick connections to the Bay Area and the world, plus ski and snowboard in Provo from San Bernardino all winter long. Every other airport, you're going to be in long TSA lines, you're going to be miserable, you're going to say, oh, I got to get there two, three hours before my flight.

Not at San Bernardino International Airport. And now we send you on a direct flight into our podcast, which starts right now. This is the world famous K-Rock. Good morning. Welcome to your K-Rock. We are Klein Alley Show. You know, one of our buddies, I like to consider him a friend of ours, is a man by the name of Stu Mendel. And he is up there in Sky Fox, has been for a long time. He's calling the chases. He's our eye in the sky whenever things are happening. And obviously, over the past 24 hours here, we've all heard about the really tragic situation that happened with the chopper for Channel 4 that went down and multiple people lost their lives, including, I guess, the NBC version of Stu.

Ellie in the heli. Ellie in the heli. I would even argue she had a better nickname than Stu. And the whole situation is sad. Terribly sad. You know, I mean, there's for so many reasons. And obviously, as Ali pointed out yesterday, you know, part of living in Southern California, the soundtrack to us living here is the sounds of choppers constantly above head.

A lot of times those are LAPD birds. Sometimes they're the news choppers. As someone who lived right at the interchange between the 101 and 405 for a while, that was my sweet sounds I'd go to sleep to and wake up to every morning. Yeah, I know. I mean, these guys are up in the air almost every single day. And usually in our area, there's probably four or five choppers going at any given time. And you don't think that things like this could happen. And also, you kind of get used to hearing the same voices and personalities bringing you the news, telling you about car chases.

I know Stu's been a part of our lives. So we wanted to check in with Stu for a few reasons because I thought maybe he could shed some light on all of this that is happening right now for us regular normies that don't necessarily understand the intricacies of what it's like to spend most of your life hovering above Southern California in a chopper. And first of all, Stu, thank you for being back on with us again. It's good to talk to you.

You know, we're big fans of yours. Hey, I heard all that intro. I'm actually blushing. Thank you, guys. I appreciate that, and I love the love. Thank you for all that. And, you know, I just want to start with, you know, a lot of...

I see it in the community right now. everybody that ever ever even saw a helicopter seems to be chiming in on on you know their version of what happened or or their ideas of what could have what what could be better or why this happened and all this and you know the reality for me is straight out is that it shouldn't be about us surviving it should be about iliana george and unfortunately that person on the ground And, you know, I really, you know, I can't say that enough. And, you know, the helicopter community, we're all a family. There's no doubt about it.

But it is really, truly just like a family. You've got those cousins and brothers and, you know, everybody's got a different, you know, a different type of attitude. but uh you know they're based out of and this is something too that maybe most people don't really know is that the helicopter really isn't owned by nbc uh you know that they they are managed by companies and out here in los angeles you've got heliink that's the people that i right now they're the ones that manage the aircraft that i fly with helinet which is you know the old school original they've been here forever and then you've got angel city air which has the ktla and the nbc contract so you know i i really haven't you know and and it's me i don't

even know why i'm confessing i feel like this is a confessional but i haven't really reached out to any of my friends over there at aca because i just don't know what to say to them yeah um you know they know, they know that I, I feel the loss. Uh, Ileana, she was, you know, a lot of people know her from, from the news and she had a great, uh, you know, following on social media, but she was such a wonderful, beautiful person. And when I say that, I'm not just talking about her physical beauty. I mean, inside, she was one of those people. And believe me, I would, I would be saying this if this accident hadn't happened and you said you know tell me about Ileana um you know I I I started working and she's she's she was learning in the 90s a late night oh I'm sorry

early 2000s early 2000s and um and she came in and you know here's this bouncy bubbly college grad from Orange County Chapman University and you know here I am this you know seasoned I'm gonna say use the word season but you know i've said it before she she made this rhyme she's like there's stew on the couch and he's oscar the grouch that's what she used to call me all the time oh man she was good at coming up with rhymes huh she's good she was she was and and but the thing was is like we had very opposing views and when she showed up she was you know this you know this go-getter you know you're like cartoon character girl like you know i'm gonna change the world i'm gonna be the change i'm gonna make the difference and and just saw she saw things in a much different light

and at first you know you know i poked fun at it but you know then i saw that she had passion and then i saw that she was learning the camera and she was learning how to to gather news and she started and you know secretly inside and maybe i should have been more vocal you know inside i was I was rooting for her. I really was. And she did, she pulled it off. She made it happen. And, and that, and that was, you know, and that was, that was the thing. And, you know, I was proud of her and, you know, and we are a community and I am kind of that grouchy guy in the real, in the real life. I, you know,

I'm not the guy that goes to the barbecues or hangs out and has beers after work. I, I kind of just keep to myself, but you know, Ileana, every time I saw her, it was warm hugs, big smiles. Um, you know what I'm talking about in, in work, you know, we don't, you know, we'll land somewhere for fuel if there's a big story and we'll get out and, you know, talk or if there's a helicopter event, you know, and we're both there and, you know, it's that loss, it's that she is gone and, you know, and, and I can talk to you guys about, you know, you know, the ideas I can understand the NTSB started talking about some stuff and i can give you guys some insight about you know that that video where you hear those

horns going off in the background and get you some ideas about what was going on there but you know in the community we are very judge each other very harshly all the time and nobody nobody in my circle nobody that knows george has anything negative to say i think he i think they had a a catastrophic failure uh you know they had it they had a mechanical issue and uh he handled it the best he could and it was very it just it was tragic and he did they did everything right you know the crew did everything right and it's just just brutal how it ended does this freak you out at all because uh you know you've spent i mean countless hours up there and we talked about this when we did the ama with you and you're ever freaked out and there

times when you've had close calls etc but when something like this is obviously you know it's affected all of us and we don't even know the half of what you go goes into this on a daily basis are you uh at all more nervous about your daily job or do you just go this is one of those sad fluke accidents that happens from time to time it's a sad fluke accident that happens from time to time today skybox you know we were the only ones up flying we did news we did our morning show uh you You know, I, again, if you know me, don't judge me by this comment, but it's like, you know, work now, mourn later. And, you know, we were up there today. Clearly, we have a different type of aircraft.

We fly in a bell. You know, all the other news helicopters in California are the same type of aircraft that crashed. You know, maybe not the same exact model, but the same type, meaning it's an A-star. but um you know it's i'm not i'm not and i'm not and then again i'm just now i'm thinking about it it's like i i'm not saying that like you know i'm so brave or you know because even the even my pilot dylan he was anxious to go fly because we love what we do right and uh and and you know it's an accident it was a terrible unfortunate accident and you know and i i've had other people you know we talk about it's been believe me it's been the topic of conversation constantly

you know you could something could happen to your loved ones going to work today you know well i know they say all the time you know we hear about say for example a commercial plane going down and it's like oh my gosh how devastating people get scared to fly but in hindsight this doesn't happen that often and i imagine with helicopters it happens even less but some of the information about the helicopter they were saying it was 22 years old like what is old for a helicopter and is it something that they could have avoided if they had updated it oh you know what all that stuff i okay so aircraft uh you know they they do have a um a finite life there there's there's something about that i don't know that number right off the top of my head but they

have a finite life i mean and it goes by hours aircraft go by flight hours um so you know even though it was a 20-year-old aircraft, that engine might have been, you know, a couple of months old. They are taken apart and put back together endlessly. And as far as maintenance goes, you know, there's on our aircraft, and I say it's the same for everybody, there's something called a daily. Every one of these helicopter companies, we have our own mechanics that are part of you know part of the team and they have something called a daily where the mechanic will go out and like literally go through a lot of the the crucial components like put eyes on it check hoses uh you know all that stuff every single day and then the pilot does what's called

the pre-flight and then technically that's every time we go fly and you know the joke is the big ones on the top the little ones on the back let's go but it really truly they check oil they check you know the pilot does and so there is continuous maintenance on these aircraft stu mondell stu mondell is on this right now if you're just joining aerial photographer reporter uh he's the uh the fox eye in the sky for all of us uh and uh on skyfox and you know nice enough to give us the sweet divots shout out of multiple times during car chases today we're talking about obviously something much uh much sadder and that is the loss of a local reporter when her chopper went down yesterday and people are talking about it we've all sadly now seen this video because

we can't avoid it where you're kind of watching those last moments of the uh the helicopter trying to get elevation you hear that that sound what is that that sound that we're all hearing that's an alarm that basically says what the the chopper can't get up there's an engine issue what is that sound we're hearing well the the first one you hear the that when i when you hear that that tapping beep that beep beep beep that beep beep beep sound uh that one is actually a high rotor meaning the rpms are too high for the rotor and so the blades are spinning too fast so that's probably the indication that there's an actual like whatever was leading up to that that is like where the problem actually started and and the solid horn that you're hearing afterwards is a low

rotor so uh you know the pilots this is the thing too i heard somebody uh in one of the interviews somebody that witnessed it saying that you know he was shocked to see that it wasn't falling out of the sky it looked like it was gliding and you know that's another one a lot of people think like oh those rotors are going to stop and you're going to drop like a rock well you know there's a lot of physics involved there and it doesn't actually work like that you know you can have an engine out and the aircraft still will have the ability i mean it's going to go down but it you know you have the ability to you know pick where you want to land or you know and it and if their training is right and the you know everything is working well you can actually put it down without damage

these pilots they train like that they train for engine out like once a year they have to do proficiency and they literally will take that aircraft go out to maybe burbank airport or something that's a big airport heaven forbid something happens and they want to be where there's, you know, emergency vehicles, but they literally do engine out training where they are flying. They will, you know, do a simulated engine out, you know, type of situation and basically just fly in without any power to the rotor. And so it, it, it, it, it's possible it's done. And what happened, what George was confronted with, you know, we all hear it. We all see what, see what happened i you know i just don't know i don't know uh and and i but but the reality is

the first horn was a high the second one was a low uh they were doing that that shuttering you see with the camera that is you know the a-star has three blades so that's where the blades are probably getting so slow that you know that you're losing that glide type of thing but he also might have been flaring at that point meaning kind of pulling the nose up so he's fine trying to you know he has that spot and you know i don't know why you know again i wasn't there right i wasn't in the cockpit well still we think of uh we think of what you do uh on a daily basis i think we take it for granted a lot and then something like this happens and we uh you know uh we appreciate uh you for uh flying above and giving us uh all those aerial shots you've given us got us through the

fires and everything else and i know that this has hit you uh extra hard and uh just wanted to say thank you for joining us to shed some light on it because I think all of us regular normies are kind of confused as to, other than just feeling sad about what happened, understanding it's a tragedy, not really understanding why or any of the stuff behind it, but well, anyway, next time

maybe we'll talk under more fun circumstances, I guess. Definitely, and thank you guys and you know what, I gotta tell you, I love the love you gotta know, my social media's been blowing up, my phone was blowing up from the moment it happened and you know, I do, I love the love and thank you guys for letting me come on and just say

And, hey, and, you know, next time it'll be something fun. Well, as we've said, the news choppers up in the air are kind of like white noise for Southern California. And like Klein said, you know, it becomes something that we just, you know, don't think about that's happening every single day. But we do appreciate you and everything that you guys do. No, man. Love you guys. Love you guys. And send prayers to Ileana's family and George's family and that person.

Thanks. I appreciate that. Thank you. Love you too, man. We wanted to be able to speak to this intelligently. But since Ali and I have a total of zero hours of any sort of helicopter training, we decided that we should have a man on that does this job daily and how it's affecting Stu. But he was back up in the sky today. And thanks for saying those words.

And obviously, we echo everything you said. We've got to take a quick break. We're back in a moment. More show to get to. And those tickets will be in mere moments. I think we've got a Generation Wars to get to this hour. So get ready to be a part of that coming up on KROQ.