John Silva, a pioneering broadcasting engineer who made an enduring impact on news production during his years with Los Angeles television station KTLA, died November 28, 2012. He was 92.
Silva, who served as a Navy radar officer during World War II, started his television career at KTLA when it was still experimental station W6XYZ — an opportunity for which he turned down a job at NBC in New York. He is best known for inventing the Telecopter, a helicopter mobile unit used for television reporting, which is still used today for capturing bird’s-eye views of stories down below.
His innovation, now used throughout the world, earned Silva the nickname "father of airborne news gathering."
Upon his passing, KTLA paid tribute to him on the air:
