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N155TV — KSL Chopper 5 Over UVU

N155TV is the local television news helicopter that orbited the Utah Valley University campus for roughly two hours on the afternoon of 10 September 2025. It is the least mysterious aircraft in this section — a news chopper doing exactly what news choppers do after a shooting — and it matters anyway, because its camera position has been used to argue a point about the roof.

Aircraft identification​

From the FAA Civil Aviation Registry:

  • Tail number: N155TV
  • Type: Bell 206L-3 LongRanger III — a seven-seat single-engine light helicopter
  • Year built: 1990 · Serial number: 51339
  • Registered owner: U S Helicopters Inc, Marshville, North Carolina
  • Livery: KSL Chopper 5 (KSL-TV, Salt Lake City)
  • Cost to buy new today: ~$3.5–4 million — the 206L-3 has been out of production since 2017; Bell's in-production single-engine successor, the 407GXi, has a base price under $4 million and runs near $5 million fully equipped. See Aircraft Costs.

What the flight track shows​

X user @Villgecrazylady published two FlightRadar24 playback screenshots of the aircraft on 26 July 2026. The playback data in those screenshots:

  • Departed Bountiful (BTF), squawking 0105
  • Playback time 7:38 PM UTC = 1:38 PM MDT
  • Barometric altitude 5,850 ft, GPS altitude 6,025 ft — roughly 1,200–1,250 ft above the Losee Center roof
  • Ground speed 76 knots, vertical speed −832 fpm, track 145°
  • The track shows dozens of stacked orbits centred on the UVU campus, with the aircraft symbol near the Fulton Library

The poster's claim attached to those screenshots was that the helicopter's footage shows "the screwdriver wasn't on the roof" — that a hand tool later entered into evidence was not visible in the aerial video, and that the aircraft left about two hours later.

Why the altitude number is the whole argument​

This is a claim that can be evaluated without trusting anybody, and it turns on one question:

Can a screwdriver be resolved from 1,200 feet?

That is the load-bearing assumption. At roughly 1,200 feet slant range, even a stabilised 4K broadcast gimbal is working at the edge of resolving a hand tool against a gravel-and-membrane commercial roof, and any answer depends on lens, sensor, compression, and where the tool was lying. An object not being visible in that footage is very weak evidence that it was not there.

The timing matters too. Investigator Bagley reportedly reached the roof around 12:44 pm and reportedly photographed the screwdriver into evidence. The playback frame above is 1:38 pm — 54 minutes after the tool was reportedly already collected. If it had been bagged, it would not be on the roof to photograph from the air.

The part that is genuinely verifiable​

The flight track itself is checkable by anyone, and this site encourages the check: N155TV, 2025-09-10, FlightRadar24 playback. Altitude, speed, orbit pattern and timestamps are all public playback data. That half of the claim stands on its own regardless of what the footage does or does not show.

Open questions​

  1. Does KSL's raw 10 September aerial footage still exist, and at what resolution?
  2. What is the exact ground-resolution capability of the camera fitted to Chopper 5?
  3. At what time did the helicopter arrive on scene, relative to the reported 12:44 pm roof access?

Sources​

Interesting In This Area​

:::caution Legal Disclaimer Nothing on this page constitutes a finding of wrongdoing by KSL-TV, U S Helicopters Inc, any crew member, or any living person. Claims attributed to X users are reproduced as their claims and are unproven. :::