A news helicopter covering a fatal Los Angeles Metro bus collision crashed in a Chatsworth parking lot Tuesday evening, killing the pilot, an aerial photojournalist, and a person on the ground. The crash happened as the aircraft was providing live coverage of the very collision it went down near.
What happened, and who died?
The helicopter, a Eurocopter AS 350 B2 operated by Angel City Air for NBC4 and Telemundo 52, went down shortly before 7 p.m. Tuesday and burst into flames on impact, with fire spreading to nearby parked vehicles. Two people aboard the aircraft were killed: pilot George Marciniw, who grew up in Southern California and graduated from Burbank High School, and Eliana Moreno, an aerial photojournalist and 2010 Chapman University graduate who’d been with the helicopter team since that same year. A third victim, a pedestrian on the ground, also died; two additional people were hospitalized. Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said, “We lost five Angelenos today,” referring to the combined toll of both the bus collision and the helicopter crash.
What was the bus collision the helicopter was covering?
Earlier Tuesday, at 5:03 p.m., an SUV collided with a Los Angeles Metro bus on Nordhoff Street, killing two people and injuring several others. NewsChopper4 was providing aerial coverage of that collision when it crashed roughly two hours later, meaning the helicopter’s final assignment was reporting on a tragedy it would itself become part of within the same news cycle.
What caused the helicopter to go down?
That’s not yet known. The National Transportation Safety Board is leading the investigation, with the Federal Aviation Administration assisting, and investigators were expected to arrive at the crash site Wednesday morning. Officials haven’t said whether the aircraft suffered a mechanical failure or what else might have caused the crash, and a cause typically isn’t determined until well into an NTSB investigation.
How has NBC responded?
NBC Los Angeles issued a statement saying, “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.” News helicopter crews are rarely in the spotlight themselves, and the deaths of Marciniw and Moreno underscore that the aerial coverage viewers see during breaking news, including the very story of the bus collision, comes with its own real risk to the people flying and filming it.
Sources: NBC News · KTLA · NBC Los Angeles · Associated Press
