Car crashes into TV studio while host is on air

A former news anchor working in Chicago was shocked when a vehicle slammed into the street-level studio where he was broadcasting on Sunday night.

Ravi Baichwal's response was to look to his right in disbelief and exclaim "whoa!" when the minivan slammed into the building, jarring the studio and shaking up the 10 p.m. newscast just one minute after it began.



"I challenge anybody to kind of completely look straight at the camera when something like that happens. Our big fear, of course, was that people were standing where the car came in," Baichwal said.

No one was hurt by the Mazda MPV minivan, which crashed right into WLS-TV's downtown studio and came within about seven metres of the anchor's desk where Baichwal was sitting.



"Luckily nothing happened there, and the weirdest thing was that it's very cold here in Chicago and so as soon as it happened, all of a sudden you could smell the street, you could feel the cold from the air," he said.

The driver, Gerald Richardson, 25, was jailed on charges of causing property damage and reckless driving.