3 Killed as News Helicopter Plunges From the Sky

A television news helicopter covering a deadly bus wreck fell into a parking lot in the Chatsworth neighborhood of Los Angeles on Tuesday evening and caught fire, killing the two crew members on board and a man on the ground.

The aircraft was NewsChopper4, operated by Angel City Air and providing aerial coverage for NBC4 Los Angeles and its Spanish-language sister station, Telemundo 52. Reporter Eliana Moreno, 38, and pilot George Marciniw were killed. The Los Angeles County medical examiner identified the person killed on the ground as Edy Gutierrez Mejia, 29.

The crash was reported just before 7 p.m. between two commercial buildings at 9151 Mason Ave., near Nordhoff Street, the Los Angeles Fire Department said. The fire damaged four cars and two storage containers and did not spread to surrounding buildings. Two people were taken to a hospital, Fire Battalion Chief Rico Gross said at a late-night news conference.

National Transportation Safety Board senior air safety investigator Fabian Salazar said the helicopter was an Airbus AS350 B-2, registered N358TV, flying an electronic newsgathering mission with a pilot and a local television reporter on board. The aircraft was substantially damaged and burned after impact.

The last seconds of the live feed

Video posted online from inside the helicopter shows the camera zooming out, then several alarms sounding as the aircraft begins falling. Moreno can be heard saying, "You can't pull up?" before the video goes black.

NBC4 anchor Colleen Williams told viewers that evening the station had lost contact with its aerial crew, then confirmed on air that NewsChopper4 was the helicopter that went down.

"We are going to take a couple of minutes to think about that, process it," Williams said, her voice shaking. Moments later the coverage cut off and the station switched temporarily to other programming.

Broadcast audio is the top piece of evidence so far

Salazar told reporters at a Wednesday briefing near the scene that the recording made during the live report is probably the most important piece of evidence investigators have found.

"What we want to do is get a pristine copy of that recording and send it to our recorder's lab for a sound spectrum analysis," Salazar said. "In that recording, we are clearly hearing sounds that are consistent with the engine changing its speed. And we're also hearing tones that are being generated that are likely advisories to the pilot."

Salazar said he was not aware of a flight data recorder on the helicopter, though investigators had not finished going through the wreckage. That puts more weight on the broadcast audio, security camera footage and witness accounts.

NTSB investigators, Federal Aviation Administration personnel and representatives of the airframe and engine manufacturers examined the wreckage Wednesday. The aircraft will be moved to a secure facility for further work while investigators review maintenance logbooks, weather data, the pilot's training records and video from nearby cameras.

Asked in general terms about engine failure, Salazar said helicopter pilots are trained to enter autorotation and use the rotor system to descend and land, but he stressed he was not drawing any conclusion about this crash. The crash sequence, the helicopter's altitude and whether it was operating in or out of ground effect all remain under review.

"The NTSB will not be looking for a probable cause while we're out here today or tomorrow," he said.

A preliminary report is expected within about 30 days. A final report with a probable cause could take as long as 18 months. The agency asked anyone with video or information about either crash to write to witness@ntsb.gov.

The wreck the crew flew out to cover

About two hours earlier, an SUV slammed into the middle of a Metro bus near Nordhoff Street and De Soto Avenue, killing two people and injuring six others. Photos and videos online showed half the SUV lodged in the side of the bus.

The Los Angeles County medical examiner identified the two people killed in that collision as Gage Weida, 31, and Daniel Castillo, 46. The SUV driver, 36-year-old Bailee Lynn Rios, survived and was arrested on suspicion of murder. Prosecutors had not filed charges as of Wednesday.

Several television news helicopters were over the west San Fernando Valley scene when the crash happened, and police cars and ambulances were already in the area. NBC4 reporter Robert Kovacik was at the bus scene, saw black smoke rising and rushed to the helicopter site.

Witnesses described a helicopter swaying before it fell

One woman told NBC4 that her husband, who works in law enforcement, noticed the aircraft first. "He said the helicopter is looking strange. We noticed that it was swaying. Five seconds later… we saw large smoke," she said. Another witness said the helicopter erupted in a fireball as soon as it hit the parking lot.

A fire department captain speaking from near the scene described the aircraft as unrecognizable. "From the helicopter itself, it's pretty well destroyed," he said. "So we are going to have to go through the rubble and see how many victims there were on board, as well as identify the helicopter; we couldn't even see a tail."

A worker from a nearby warehouse who was standing in the parking lot at the time was taken to a hospital, shaken more emotionally than physically. Two people on the ground were injured in all, Gross said.

Eliana Moreno, a voice Angelenos knew from the air

Moreno was born in Orange County and graduated from Chapman University in 2010 with a degree in broadcast journalism. She joined the Angel City Air helicopter team that September and reported for several Southern California outlets in the years that followed. She got engaged in 2025, and her Instagram page showed she kept several chickens and dogs.

"She was just such a light, such a spark plug," NBC4 morning anchor Lynette Romero told the station. "She's teeny-tiny, but she had the biggest heart and enthusiasm. It was really contagious."

Tim Lynn, a former KTLA Sky5 helicopter pilot who called Moreno a good friend, said she arrived full of joy even after a 10-hour shift and a 2 a.m. wake-up. "She was always just positive," he said. "Very little could get her down and when things happened that were very stressful, she just powered through it and did everything she could to do the best job she could do. … Eliana was just a ray of sunshine."

George Marciniw was close to retirement

Marciniw grew up in Southern California and graduated from Burbank High School in 1974. He was believed to have more than 30 years of flying experience and had logged more than 14,000 flight hours. He and Moreno began flying together in 2023.

"When you thought about NewsChopper4 you thought about George," NBC4 meteorologist Belen De Leon said in remarks published by the station.

Esteban Jimenez, a friend and fellow pilot, said Marciniw was nearing the end of his career. "I knew him since the 90s," he said. "He was my instructor at one time, he was my eyes and ears here in LA. I just cannot believe this."

Flowers at the studio, roses at the fence

Flowers and balloons were left on the station logos outside the NBC4 and Telemundo 52 studios in Universal City. A bouquet of roses was tied to a chain-link fence at the crash site. More items were left at Whiteman Airport in Pacoima, where the helicopter was based.

Mayor Karen Bass counted the dead from both crashes together. "Losing five Angelenos is very painful," she said. "And I know this community of Chatsworth, hit hard, will be grieving for some time." She also called it a very, very, very tragic day in Los Angeles.

Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a statement that hearts are with the victims and families of the Metro bus and helicopter crashes in Chatsworth and with the entire NBC4 family, and thanked first responders. Los Angeles County Supervisor Kathryn Barger said she was shocked and deeply saddened by the loss of members of the NBC4 family.

NBC4 and Telemundo 52 said in a joint statement they were deeply saddened and extended condolences to the families, friends and colleagues of those who died. Angel City Air, which describes itself as a full-service aerial production company, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Eight fatal news helicopter crashes since 2000

There have been at least eight fatal crashes involving news helicopters in the United States since 2000, killing 16 people, according to a review of federal accident records and news accounts. They include a 2023 crash in a New Jersey forest that killed the pilot and a photographer aboard a helicopter used by Philadelphia station WPVI, and a 2022 crash beside a Charlotte, North Carolina, interstate that killed a pilot and a meteorologist during a training flight for WBTV.

Tuesday was the second fatal crash involving a helicopter reporting for NBC4. On Aug. 1, 1977, a Bell 206 news helicopter piloted by Francis Gary Powers ran out of fuel and went down in a field near Encino, killing Powers and cameraman George Spears.

Powers was best known as the pilot of the U-2 spy plane shot down over the Soviet Union in 1960. He was captured and sentenced to 10 years for espionage, served 21 months and was released in a 1962 prisoner swap before taking the job flying news coverage over Los Angeles.

Helicopters remain a fixture of Los Angeles news, where stations break into programming for pursuits, fires and freeway wrecks. Los Angeles County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath, whose district includes Chatsworth, said in a statement Wednesday that there are serious questions about what happened.