The veteran CBS News correspondent Bob Simon, whose career spanned five decades, has been killed in a car accident in New York. Simon, 73, covered war zones including Vietnam and was a passenger on one of the last helicopters out of Saigon in the 1970s.

Anderson CooperAnderson Cooper paid tribute to his friend and colleague Bob Simon

Simons won numerous awards for his fearless journalism including 27 Emmys for his flagship programme '60 Minutes'. His final piece over the weekend documented the Oscar-nominated civil rights drama Selma. 

"It is a tragedy made worse because we lost him in a car accident, a man who escaped more difficult situations than almost any journalist in modern times", CBS News Chairman and "60 Minutes" executive producer Jeffrey Fagan said.

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Fager called Simon "a reporter's reporter," who was "driven by a natural curiosity that took him all over the world."

Simon was riding as a passenger in a hired sedan that hit another car stopped at a traffic light on Wednesday. The vehicle smashed into metal barriers, separating traffic lanes.

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CNN's Anderson Cooper, who worked with Simon on 60 Minutes, said: "Bob was for the last five decades simply one of the best, in my opinion, at getting a story, telling a story, writing a story and making it simply unforgettable."

His death comes just 24 hours after fellow broadcaster Jon Stewart announced that he would be quitting his long running stint hosting the Daily Show on Comedy Central. Elsewhere, NBC suspended its news anchor Brian Williams for embellishing an Iraq war story.

We here at Contactmusic.com send our condolences to the family and friends of Bob Simon.