The Twilight Zone Movie Tragedy: What Really Happened on the Night Three People Died

Forty years ago, on July 23rd, 1982, something terrible happened during the filming of Twilight Zone: The Movie. It was around 2:20 a.m. on an outdoor set in California. A scene was being shot where actor Vic Morrow was supposed to carry two Vietnamese children across a river while a helicopter flew overhead, with shooting and explosions going off all around.

For context, a rather dangerous decision had been made for this specific scene. Instead of using fake kids or stunt doubles, director John Landis apparently wanted real children in Morrow’s arms. And the kids — six-year-old Renee Chen and seven-year-old Myca Dinh Le — were not professional actors. Just regular kids, excited to be a part of a movie.

Then disaster struck. The explosions going off all around got out of hand and shook the helicopter so violently that it crashed into the river, killing Vic Morrow, Renee, and Myca.

The Children Had Names

What’s maybe the worst part of this accident is that the children’s parents — Dr. Daniel Lee and Cheyenne Way Chen — were there that night, watching in horror as the tragedy unfolded right in front of them.

And it’s also a little heartbreaking that whenever this event is mentioned, people usually talk about Vic Morrow. But when it comes to the kids, Renee and Myca, they’re usually reduced to “and the children.” No — they had names, lives, and families, and deserve to be remembered as well.

The Illegal Hiring

The kids weren’t supposed to be there that night at all. California law says children can’t work at night without a special permit. They hadn’t gotten one. In fact, their parents were paid under the table in cash to keep things quiet.

The children’s families said they were never told about the helicopter or the explosions. They had no idea how dangerous the scene would be.

The recruitment of the kids wasn’t handled well either. One of the producers, George Folsey, had reached out to his friend Dr. Harold Schuman, who then contacted his brother Mark Chen about his niece Renee appearing in the scene. Dr. Daniel Lee also thought his son Myca might enjoy being part of the film. Both kids were brought to the set. John Landis approved them for the scene right away.

After the accident, a critical question arose: how many people knew that having the kids there at night was illegal? As it turned out, quite a few. More like everyone — except the studio. Warner Brothers remained in the dark because the filmmakers had kept it a secret, afraid the scene might get shut down.

Even executive producer Frank Marshall, working with Steven Spielberg, knew about the kids and had paid their families $500 each for the night’s work.

The Warnings That Were Ignored

One of the crew members — Anderson House, the second assistant director — was worried about having kids on set after hours, especially around a helicopter and explosives. He shared his concerns with Dan Allingham, asking if Landis planned to film the kids during the day and make it look like nighttime. Allingham said no.

House then asked if Landis had thought about using dummies or small stunt actors instead of real kids. Allingham said Landis didn’t want to because he thought it would look fake. When House kept asking about it, Allingham told him to drop it.

Folsey even joked after a meeting with Landis and Allingham, saying: “We’ll probably all be thrown in jail for this.” They knew hiring kids at night was illegal.

The Night of the Shoot

On the night of July 22nd, 1982, Renee and Myca were on the set at Indian Dunes Park. The movie crew had built a fake Vietnamese village using bamboo poles, palm leaves, and cardboard. At one point, helicopter pilot Dorsey Wingo talked to Vic Morrow about the scene. Morrow was supposed to throw a stick at the helicopter as he ran across the river, but Wingo was worried that if the stick hit the rotor, it could cause trouble. They decided Morrow could throw a lightweight piece of balsa wood instead.

It was after 2 a.m. when the children’s scene was finally ready to be shot. Both of Renee’s parents were there, and Myca’s mother, Kim Hoai, was also watching. Landis wanted the kids to look more realistic, so he smeared some mud on their faces and tore their clothes a little. Vic Morrow tried to keep the kids calm by making funny faces, and the kids couldn’t stop laughing. Landis actually had to stop the scene several times and tell them to be serious.

Finally, around 3:30 in the morning, Landis got the scene he wanted. The parents were paid $500 in cash, and they were told the kids would be needed again for filming the next night.

July 23rd, 1982

On the night of July 23rd, Renee arrived with her mom and Myca came with his dad. It was the night they were going to film the big scene where Morrow’s character carries two kids across a river away from a helicopter attack, promising: “I’ll keep you safe, kids. I swear to God.”

At around 9:30 p.m., before filming that climactic moment, Landis wanted to shoot a scene where Renee and Myca were inside a hut and Morrow would rush in to grab them. Landis was directing from a few feet out in the water when a water bomb went off. Dust flew everywhere, and Renee began to cry because it got in her eyes.

Renee’s mother expressed concern and asked George Folsey if the situation was dangerous. He assured her it wasn’t — describing it as just a loud noise with no real danger. Then the children and their parents went back to a trailer to rest.

The first part of the final scene — where the helicopter flew toward the fake village — was filmed at 11:30 p.m. Pilot Dorsey Wingo was in the cockpit with Dan Allingham, who was controlling a spotlight. Vic Morrow was standing in the river, and the technicians fired guns to signal the special effects crew to set off explosions.

Fire shot up toward the helicopter, and water splashed onto the windshield, making it hard for Wingo to see. He stuck his head out the window but got burned by the heat and cursed. A fire safety officer, Richard Eaner, saw all that and was worried the helicopter could crash because of the size of the explosions.

He told his boss, George Hull, but Hull told him to share his concerns with the filmmakers. He didn’t. Frustrated, Eaner just shouted: “The helicopter will be on the ground!”

In court, he explained why he didn’t share his concerns — he said it wasn’t how things were done in the fire department’s chain of command. A grave oversight that ended up with neither Hull nor Eaner informing the filmmakers about the risk.

The Final Shoot

When the helicopter landed, Wingo told Allingham to inform Landis that the explosions were too near the helicopter. Allingham agreed, emphasising that safety was the priority. Camera operator Roger Smith, alarmed, also refused to continue filming unless someone ensured the explosions wouldn’t be as close again. Allingham assured him he would talk to Landis.

Meanwhile, assistant camera operator Randy Robinson and Wingo talked about how hot the fireball from the explosions had been. Landis overheard them, smiled, and said: “You ain’t seen nothing yet.”

Renee and Myca had fallen asleep in their trailer. When it was time to shoot again, George Folsey woke them up and offered them a snack. Later, during the investigation, both parents recalled that Folsey had instructed them not to let the firefighters know the children were working — telling them to say the kids were just friends helping out.

Records showed it was about 2:20 in the morning when John Landis gave the order to start filming.

Vic Morrow walked into the water, knee-deep, holding one child under each arm. Through his bullhorn, Landis yelled at the helicopter to go lower. An assistant relayed the order to the pilot using a walkie-talkie. Landis shouted for fire.

Machine gunners began firing as the helicopter descended. Special effects technicians set off water explosions to simulate shots hitting the river. James Chamomile, a quiet technician, was in charge of setting off bigger explosions in the back of the village. He used a firing board, running a nail across it to detonate the bombs. He wore a welder’s hood to protect his eyes from the dust.

The hea t from the blast was so intense that two camera operators had to run up a hill to get away from it. Meanwhile, Wingo realised the aircraft was in trouble. It was hard to control with all the fireballs around. Allingham, sitting next to him, noticed the danger too and urged Wingo to get the helicopter out of there.

On the ground, James Chamomile — unaware that the helicopter was having trouble — set off two more explosions. Somehow, those blasts caused the helicopter to lose control.

In the water, Morrow dropped Renee Chen. He tried to grab her, but the helicopter’s right skid hit her, killing her instantly. The spinning rotor then struck Vic Morrow, killing him, and also killed seven-year-old Myca.

“That’s a wrap,” John Landis announced through the loudspeaker — using the usual phrase for the end of filming. But this time, the words felt horribly out of place.

“Leave your equipment where it is. Everyone go home. Please, everyone go home.”

The Aftermath

Renee’s mother and Myca’s father were screaming in shock. They were taken to a nearby hospital, treated for shock, and then sent home.

Some of the cast and crew thought that telling everyone to go home right away wasn’t the best idea. Script supervisor Katherine Wuen later said: “It might have been better if we all stayed together for a while, to console each other.”

During the funerals, George Folsey Jr. and John Landis apparently both wanted to speak at Vic Morrow’s funeral. Not everyone thought that was a good idea. Steve Shagan, a close friend of Morrow’s, wasn’t happy when they said they wanted to deliver eulogies. Folsey had previewed his speech for Shagan, who was immediately upset. He sarcastically responded, suggesting they should just show the trailer and sell tickets — criticising the idea of turning the moment into a spectacle.

Despite Shagan’s objections, both Folsey and Landis went ahead with their speeches. Folsey said that if there was any comfort to be found, it was that the film was completed. Landis’s eulogy also sounded awkward and self-centred: “Tragedy can strike in an instant,” he said. “But film is immortal. Vic lives forever.”

At Renee Chen’s funeral, the mood shifted. Landis showed up looking pale and shaken, held up by his wife and a friend. Renee’s relatives stared coldly at him — except for her mother, who was crying.

Landis also attended Myca Dinh Le’s funeral, where Myca’s choir performed his favourite hymn: “Jesus Loves All the Children of the World.”

For weeks after the tragedy, Landis was on heavy medication. At one point, he called his friend and questioned if he was ever going to be able to direct anyone again.

And yet — Hollywood is a forgiving place, especially if you can make money. In the four years between the accident and the trial, Landis returned to directing. He directed Michael Jackson’s Thriller. He also directed Into the Night.

The Lawsuits

Mark and Cheyenne Chen filed suit on August 3rd, 1982, asking for $200 million in damages. They named Landis, Spielberg, George Folsey Jr., Paul Stewart, Dorsey Wingo, Frank Marshall, Warner Brothers, Western Helicopters, the owners of Indian Dunes Park, and a host of other defendants. Myca Dinh Le’s family followed with their lawsuit just over a year later.

Then, in a shocking move, facing the $200 million lawsuit, Warner Brothers’ lawyers argued that Renee Chen — who was just six years old — had “knowingly assumed the risk” of being on set.

Vic Morrow’s daughters, Carrie Morrow and actress Jennifer Jason Leigh, also filed a lawsuit. Their case was settled about a year later, but the details were never made public.

The Investigation and Charges

The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office had to figure out if anyone was criminally responsible. Prosecutor Gary Kesselman discovered a lot of troubling things. Donna and Dr. Schuman said they didn’t know the children would be near explosives or a low-flying helicopter. Others told him that Landis, Folsey, and Allingham knew they were breaking the law when they hired the kids.

Kesselman offered some people involved immunity in exchange for telling the truth. This included second assistant director Anderson House, James Chamomile, and all the special effects crew working under Paul Stewart. But not Stewart himself.

House told Kesselman that the children were purposely hidden from Jack Tye, a fire safety officer who sometimes worked as a welfare worker. If Tye had known, he claims he would have reported the illegal hiring.

When John Landis testified, he basically blamed everyone else for the tragedy. He said he assumed Stewart and Wingo — the experts — had coordinated everything. Kesselman pressed him, questioning why Landis hadn’t ensured the experts communicated with each other. Landis responded by comparing the situation to taking a taxi — saying that when you get into a cab, you trust the driver won’t drive you off a bridge because they’re a licensed professional.

During the trial, Wingo said he regretted that Vic Morrow didn’t look up at the helicopter as he supposedly told him to. He claimed Morrow had “over five seconds between the time that the sound of the helicopter changed and the impact.”

Prosecutor Leah D’Agostino was quick to criticise this: “They’re blaming the parents. They’re blaming the fire safety officers. They’re out here blaming everyone. Now they’re blaming the dead man. It’s incredible.”

The Charges and the Trial

On June 15th, 1983, the grand jury returned its verdict. Landis, Folsey, and Allingham were charged with two counts of manslaughter for the deaths of Renee Chen and Myca Dinh Le. Landis, Stewart, and Wingo were also charged with three counts of manslaughter for reckless and negligent acts that led to the deaths of Morrow and the children.

Before the trial, Landis replaced his lawyer with James Neal, a respected attorney known for defending Ford Motor Company in the exploding Pinto case. The prosecution also changed — Kesselman was taken off the case, replaced by Leah Perwin D’Agostino. People called her the Dragon Lady, or sometimes Queen Leah, because she was tough and always ready to fight hard in the courtroom. The defence lawyers didn’t get along with her at all. It seemed like there could have been some elements of sexism behind how the defence felt about her — the fact that D’Agostino wasn’t part of their old boys’ club and was bold, assertive, and not afraid to speak her mind.

The jury was seven women and five men, with about a third being people of colour. The judge was Roger Boren, who had once been the prosecutor in the famous Hillside Strangler case.

The Verdict and the Legacy

Following the accident, things changed. The movie industry changed its safety practices. Warner Brothers created safety committees to establish rules for things like pyrotechnics, gunfire, and even smoke on movie sets. The Director’s Guild also started punishing directors who broke safety rules and set up hotlines to answer safety questions quickly.

Because of these changes, accidents on movie sets dropped by 69.6% between 1982 and 1986. A year later, in 1987, the State Fire Marshal’s office in California set up the Motion Picture and Entertainment Safety Program, which oversaw the use of special effects like explosions on film sets.

John Landis said in a 1996 interview: “There was absolutely no good aspect about this whole story. The tragedy, which I think about every day, had an enormous impact on my career, from which I may possibly never recover.”

Steven Spielberg, who co-produced the film, was deeply affected. He ended his friendship with Landis and said the accident left everyone “sick to the center of our souls.” He added: “No movie is worth dying for.”

The assistant director, Andy House, had his name removed from the credits. He replaced it with a fake name: Alan Smithy.

This was the first time a director had been charged due to a fatality on a film set. A truly horrible case, with clearly long-lasting impact.

Renee Chen and Myca Dinh Le were six and seven years old. They were excited to be in a movie. They never came home. And whatever else we say about that night — we should at least say their names.