Jerry Foster, pioneering Arizona TV news pilot, dies at 82
Jerry Foster, who became Phoenix’s first airborne television news personality and whose dramatic rescues garnered high ratings that helped convince news stations across the country to put helicopter pilots on television, has died. He was 82.
Though a television reporter, Foster became an adjunct accessory to law enforcement and fire agencies. He assisted police on manhunts. He flew firemen close over raging rivers to pluck people in distress out of the water.
In 1973, one of his first years of flying a helicopter, Foster flew a sheriff’s deputy over the desert east of Phoenix and found a missing 2-year-old boy. From then on, Foster vowed to never be more than 20 minutes away from his helicopter in case his services were needed.
In 1982, then-President Ronald Reagan gave Foster a medal for public service through aviation.
Foster, in a 2014 interview with The Arizona Republic, marveled that he was still alive to reflect on his life and bask in the nostalgia longtime Arizonans had for his 25-year broadcasting career. Foster wrote a biography called “Earthbound Misfit,” chronicling his adventures in and out of the cockpit.
