PHOENIX (AP) - The TV crews had huddled outside yellow crime tape countless times. But this time, as they rushed to set up their cameras at Steele Indian School Park, they realized the tragedy was their own.

Red-faced reporters wiped tears from their eyes as they focused their cameras on the smoldering wreckage of two TV news helicopters that had collided over a city park, killing two pilots and two photographers. Police swarmed into the park and started pushing bystanders back as TV cameramen struggled to get one last look at their colleagues.

Both news choppers were sending live video of a police chase as they circled over a Phoenix street. One second the KTVK helicopter was showing police cruisers chase a man in a truck. The next second, the screen went black.

``A huge boom. It just shook the wall,'' said Rick Heicksen, 39, who was almost underneath when the choppers smashed into each other.

Tom Ohmstedt, 39, watched the collision as he walked into the George & Dragon Pub for lunch with Heicksen. Ohmstedt said one of the helicopters seemed to turn into the other one. He said their blades crossed and broke apart before their bodies smashed together.

It was ``like someone dropped a plate at a metal yard,'' Ohmstedt said.

The helicopters broke into pieces midair and chunks of metal dropped to the ground and exploded in flame. The crash happened over a busy street, but the helicopters fell to the east into a rolling lawn in front of a boarded up church.

Firefighters rushed to pour water over two charred piles of twisted metal, sending thick plumes of smoke into the air. Police said no bystanders were injured in the crash.

The TV stations later reported what everyone suspected: Scott Bowerbank and Jim Cox with KTVK, and Craig Smith and Rick Krolak with KNXV died in the crash.

Several dozen reporters eventually crowded into the gated entrance of the park and set up their cameras in the baking afternoon sun. They wept into their cell phones and hugged each other between live shots.

Jeff Cochran, a photojournalist with KNXV, tried to make himself useful. Cochran, who was close friends with Krolak, was one of the first cameramen at the scene.

``It's too weird, too close to home,'' he said. Like most reporters, Cochran said his days typically involved focusing his camera on crashes, police standoffs and grieving families struck by some tragedy.

``Now I know how everybody else feels.''

James Fry, another KNXV photojournalist, sat on a cement stump and stared into space between live shots.

``It could have been anyone,'' Fry said.