An NBC news helicopter covering a fatal bus collision in Los Angeles crashed Tuesday night, killing the two crew members aboard and a bystander on the ground, while a fellow NBC reporter on the scene realized in real time that his colleagues were inside.
Robert Kovacik, an NBC4 reporter, was broadcasting live from the Chatsworth neighborhood when the station's NewsChopper4 suddenly lost altitude and plunged into a parking lot at the intersection of Nordhoff Street and DeSoto Avenue. He did not know his own colleagues, aerial reporter Eliana Moreno, 38, and veteran pilot George Marciniw, 70, were aboard the aircraft until another journalist broke the news to him on camera.
The helicopter went down roughly two hours after a separate crash at the same intersection, where a driver ran a red light and struck a Metro city bus, killing at least two people and injuring six others. Moreno and Marciniw had been providing aerial coverage of that collision when their aircraft fell from the sky, touching off a massive fire in a lot between two warehouses. A 29-year-old pedestrian, Edy Gutierrez Mejia, was also killed on the ground, AP News reported.
The sequence unfolded in agonizing stages. Kovacik was mid-broadcast when an NBC4 studio anchor broke in and told him to move toward a rising column of black smoke.
"Robert, we're going to need you to move towards that smoke and get closer to that scene immediately."
Kovacik drove toward the crash site. Fox 11 reporter Ed Laskos, already on scene, put his arms around Kovacik and told him what he was looking at.
"It's a chopper, a media chopper."
Kovacik pressed Laskos: "Are you ok? It's not you guys, is it?" He then told his audience he did not yet know where the helicopter came from or whether it was, in fact, a news chopper. But the picture was about to get worse. Back in the NBC4 studio, longtime anchor Colleen Williams confirmed the unthinkable, her voice breaking on air.
"We are not in contact with our television news helicopter. We have lost contact with our people."
The station cut to a break. On the ground, Kovacik confronted police officers who were pushing reporters back from the wreckage.
"Dude, that's my crew in there, that is my own crew."
An officer told him the area was not safe and that first responders would evacuate the victims. Kovacik answered simply: "Trust me, I am putting my own life in my own hands." An unnamed female reporter was seen running past cameras in tears.
The helicopter, a Eurocopter AS350 operated by Angel City Air, crashed approximately two hours after the initial bus collision. Cockpit audio captured an alarm sounding inside the aircraft and a woman's voice saying "uh oh" and "You can't pull up?" before the chopper lost altitude, according to AP News.
An unnamed friend of both victims told Fox Los Angeles the crash appeared to involve engine failure.
"It's heartbreaking to see the engine quit."
No official cause has been confirmed. The FAA and NTSB will investigate the crash. LA Fire Department Captain Branden Silverman told reporters the helicopter was "pretty well destroyed." It came down between two warehouses, next to shipping containers and parked vehicles, igniting at least four cars and two storage containers. More than 70 Fire Department personnel responded at the height of the effort.
Eliana Moreno had been flying in news helicopters since 2010, the year she graduated from Chapman University with degrees in broadcast journalism and political science. She worked at KCAL 9 and KCBS 2 before joining NBC4, where she began flying aboard NewsChopper4 around 2018 or 2019. She maintained an Instagram account called "Eli in the Heli," where she posted pictures from the field and wrote candidly about the demands of the job.
"After working 76 hours since Sunday, I'm almost done! I can't complain though because I have the best job in the world."
In another post, from May, she reflected on completing a half-marathon in under two hours alongside her fiancé, Robert Barrientos, 47. The couple had announced their engagement on Facebook last October after at least three years together. Barrientos is a father of two.
Marciniw, the 70-year-old pilot, had logged more than 14,000 hours of flight experience, the New York Post reported. He and Moreno had been flying together since 2023. The friend who spoke to Fox Los Angeles described Marciniw as deeply experienced and said he was at a loss for words.
"I'm lost for words, I don't know what to say."
The chain of events started around 5 p.m. Tuesday, when an SUV T-boned a Metro bus at the same Chatsworth intersection. Two people on the bus were killed and six others were hurt, some critically. At least one person was found pinned underneath the bus and had to be freed by the LA Urban Search and Rescue Team; that victim was transported by ambulance with what responders described as "crushing" injuries.
The driver of the SUV, Bailee Lynn Rios, 36, of Simi Valley, was arrested on murder charges. She allegedly drove a 2004 Ford Expedition the wrong way, ran a red light, and struck the side of the bus. She was held on $4 million bail, AP News reported. Authorities are still investigating the circumstances of the collision, and a gaping hole was visible in the side of the bus after the vehicle was removed.
One additional person was hospitalized following the helicopter crash, Fox News reported. The intersection of Nordhoff Street and DeSoto Avenue will remain closed for "quite some time," officials said.
NBC4 and Telemundo 52 issued a joint statement Tuesday night.
"We are deeply saddened to share that a helicopter providing aerial news coverage for NBC4 and Telemundo 52 was involved in a fatal accident in Los Angeles on Tuesday evening. We extend our heartfelt condolences to the families, friends and colleagues of those who lost their lives."
NBC4 reporter Lauren Coronado, speaking near the helicopter crash site, captured the mood at the station: "I think a lot of us are still trying to process what happened, this terrible loss."
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass posted on social media that she was "absolutely devastated by the loss of life in Chatsworth tonight" and urged residents to stay clear of the area. She was later seen on scene consoling Kovacik. California Governor Gavin Newsom said his "hearts are with the victims and families of tonight's devastating Metro bus and helicopter crashes in Chatsworth, and with the entire NBC4 family." FCC Chairman Brendan Carr called it "very sad news."
Five people dead across two crashes at the same intersection on the same night. The people who rush toward the wreckage, the reporters, the pilots, the first responders, deserve better than to become part of the story they came to cover.
