Looks like someone didn’t get the memo. WGN Chicago urgently reported this morning on a plane crash “in the middle of the road” on the south side of the city. What the TV station didn’t realize was that it was a scene being filmed for NBC‘s freshman drama Chicago Fire. “One wing was knocked off; I don’t know if this just happened,” anchor Robin Baumgarten said at around 8 AM local time as the station’s Skycam tried to show the scene at the intersection of 29th and Martin Luther King Drive. “It looks like a giant hole in the street,” said fellow anchor Larry Potash. What the anchors could not see (as this photo from the Chicago Tribune displays), was that the area was covered in signage indicating filming was in progress. “All the usual protocol for this type of filming was followed,” said a spokesman for Universal TV, which co-produces the series with Wolf Films.
The station showed the scene for several minutes before Potash got word on air that what they were seeing was part of a TV production. “They might want to tell the news folks,” said an visibly annoyed Baumgarten. “Are you kidding me? 29th and King Drive, it’s OK. It’s all for a TV show, even though you see that plane in the road,” she added. The Chicago Fire Department admitted later that info about the filming was not widely distributed, says the Chicago Tribune, which is owned by the same company that owns WGN. “In the future, I’m asking my people to let me know so I can let the media know. News desks need to know,” Larry Langford, a CFD spokesman, said this morning.
This isn’t the first time Chicago Fire has mixed in a bit of real life in the city. Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel appeared in the October 10 pilot episode.
Related: ‘Chicago Fire’ Gets Back-Nine Order
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