LOS ANGELES — A television news crew sent into the sky to cover one deadly accident became part of a second tragedy minutes later when an NBC4 Los Angeles helicopter crashed in Chatsworth, killing its veteran aerial reporter, its pilot and a person on the ground.
The helicopter, known to viewers as NewsChopper4, went down shortly before 7 p.m. on Tuesday, September 15, near a commercial storage property on North Mason Avenue in Los Angeles’ San Fernando Valley. The aircraft had been providing aerial coverage for NBC4 and Telemundo 52 of a nearby collision involving a Metro bus and an SUV.
NBC4 later identified the two crew members killed aboard the aircraft as Eliana Moreno, a longtime aerial journalist, and George Marciniw, the pilot. The helicopter was operated by Angel City Air, which provides aerial newsgathering services to KNBC-TV and Spanish-language sister station KVEA-TV, Telemundo 52.
A third victim was killed on the ground near the crash site. Authorities had not publicly identified that person in the latest reliable reports reviewed for this story.
The crash triggered a fire that spread to nearby vehicles and storage containers before firefighters brought it under control. Federal investigators are now trying to determine why the helicopter suddenly came down.
And despite dramatic videos and unofficial theories circulating online, investigators have not announced a cause.
NBC4 Lost Contact With Its Own Crew During Live Coverage
The tragedy unfolded while NBC4 journalists were already covering the aftermath of the separate Metro bus crash.
Several television helicopters were in the area when NewsChopper4 disappeared.
NBC4 anchor Colleen Williams told viewers during an emotional live broadcast that the newsroom had lost contact with its aerial team and later received confirmation that NewsChopper4 had crashed.
The station briefly pulled away from normal coverage as staff tried to process what had happened.
NBC4 and Telemundo 52 subsequently issued a statement saying they were “deeply saddened” that a helicopter providing aerial news coverage for the stations had been involved in a fatal accident and offered condolences to the victims’ families, friends and colleagues.
The emotional sequence gave viewers an unusually raw look at journalists reporting a breaking story while gradually realizing that the aircraft involved belonged to their own newsroom.
Eliana Moreno Had Spent Years Reporting From the Air
Moreno was not simply a camera operator accompanying the pilot.
She was a veteran aerial reporter who had spent years covering Southern California from helicopters and providing viewers with live information on wildfires, police pursuits, traffic disasters and other breaking stories. NBC4 confirmed that she died alongside Marciniw.
Reporting by the Los Angeles Times says Moreno had been working in aerial newsgathering since 2010 and had degrees in broadcast journalism and political science from Chapman University.
She and Marciniw had regularly flown together in recent years, becoming familiar voices and faces to Southern California viewers even when much of their work occurred behind the dramatic aerial pictures appearing on television.
Their deaths have hit Los Angeles’ television-news community particularly hard because helicopter crews occupy a distinctive role in local journalism.
In a sprawling region defined by freeways, wildfires, pursuits and earthquakes, aerial teams frequently reach scenes or provide perspective that ground crews cannot.
The Helicopter Came Down Near a Storage Facility
Los Angeles firefighters were dispatched at about 6:57 p.m. to the 9100 block of Mason Avenue, near Nordhoff Street in Chatsworth.
The aircraft crashed between commercial buildings near a storage facility and erupted in flames.
At least four vehicles and two storage containers were damaged by the resulting fire, according to Los Angeles Fire Department information cited by local and national outlets.
More than 70 firefighters were reported deployed as crews extinguished the fire and searched the wreckage. Early reports varied slightly on the precise number of responders and patients as officials worked through a chaotic scene.
That difference in early counts is worth noting because some initial reports described one additional hospital patient, while Reuters and AP later reported that five people were assessed, three died and two were taken to hospitals. Authorities had not released complete medical details for the surviving patients at the time of the latest reports.
One of the Victims Was on the Ground
Los Angeles fire officials confirmed that at least one person killed in the helicopter crash was outside the aircraft.
Fox 11 reported that the other two fatalities were the people aboard the helicopter, later confirmed by NBC4 as Moreno and Marciniw.
That means the accident was not confined to the flight crew.
The impact carried the disaster into the industrial property below, where vehicles and containers burned and a person who was not aboard the aircraft lost their life.
The ground victim’s identity had not been announced in the reliable sources available at publication time.
They Had Been Covering Another Fatal Crash
The circumstances make the incident especially grim.
About two hours before the helicopter went down, an SUV collided violently with a Los Angeles Metro bus in Chatsworth.
Images from the road crash showed the passenger vehicle embedded in the side of the bus, prompting a major rescue operation involving trapped and injured occupants. Los Angeles Fire Department records show firefighters were dispatched to the collision shortly after 5 p.m. at West Nordhoff Street.
NBC4’s latest homepage reporting subsequently listed three people killed and six hospitalized in that collision, although earlier national reports gave a preliminary toll of at least two dead. That difference reflects the evolving casualty count during the first hours after the crash.
NewsChopper4 was one of several aircraft covering that first disaster when it crashed roughly a short distance away.
What began as coverage of a major traffic collision therefore became two separate fatal incidents in the same neighborhood on the same evening.
The Cause Is Still Unknown
The National Transportation Safety Board will lead the aviation investigation, with the Federal Aviation Administration participating.
Investigators are expected to examine the wreckage, maintenance records, aircraft systems, pilot history, weather conditions, available video, communications and flight-tracking information before reaching conclusions.
That process can take considerable time.
The FAA itself cautions that initial aviation-accident information is preliminary and can change, while the NTSB typically retains responsibility for determining the probable cause when it leads an investigation.
That is particularly important here because clips circulating online appear to show the helicopter descending rapidly, and unofficial commentators have already offered mechanical theories.
None of those theories has been established by federal investigators.
There has been no official finding of engine failure, rotor failure, pilot error, collision with another aircraft or any other specific cause.
NewsChopper4 Had Been Involved in an Air-Traffic Safety Incident Earlier This Year — But There Is No Established Link
There is one piece of background likely to attract renewed attention.
In March, NBC4 reported that a NewsChopper4 pilot maneuvered to avoid an incoming turboprop near Hollywood Burbank Airport and alerted controllers to what the FAA described as an air-traffic “conflict.” The incident contributed to tighter temporary helicopter-tracking procedures near some airports.
Angel City Air said at the time that the helicopter had not been in imminent danger and that its pilot had proactively turned away from the approaching aircraft.
However, there is currently no evidence linking that March incident to Tuesday’s crash.
The earlier event involved airspace separation near Burbank Airport. Tuesday’s accident occurred months later while NewsChopper4 was covering a breaking-news scene in Chatsworth.
Conflating the two without evidence would be premature.
Angel City Air Operated the Helicopter
The aircraft was operated by Angel City Air, rather than directly flown by NBC employees under the television station’s own flight department.
The company provides helicopter coverage for NBC4 and Telemundo 52 and has long worked in Southern California aerial broadcasting.
That distinction matters because the NTSB investigation will likely look not only at the physical aircraft but at its operation, maintenance history and relevant company procedures.
At this early stage, however, neither NBC nor federal authorities have alleged wrongdoing by Angel City Air.
Los Angeles Leaders Called It a ‘Heartbreaking Night’
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass called it a heartbreaking night for the city and expressed condolences both to families affected by the Metro bus collision and to those touched by the helicopter disaster.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom also expressed sympathy and thanked first responders working across both scenes.
The combination of disasters placed extraordinary demands on fire, police and medical personnel in Chatsworth.
First responders had already been handling mass casualties from the bus collision when the helicopter came down nearby.
News Helicopters Have Long Been Essential — and Dangerous — Tools
News helicopters are deeply embedded in Southern California television.
They provide rapid aerial images during wildfires, earthquakes, freeway collisions, police pursuits and other emergencies that may be difficult or impossible for ground journalists to see in full. The Los Angeles Times noted that aerial crews remain particularly important in the region’s sprawling geography.
But aviation carries inherent risks, particularly when aircraft spend long periods circling active breaking-news scenes alongside other media and law-enforcement helicopters.
That does not establish that congestion played any role Tuesday.
Investigators will have to determine whether traffic, mechanical condition, operational decisions, environmental factors or another issue contributed.
For now, the most important fact is also the simplest:
The cause has not been determined.
A Newsroom Had to Report Its Own Loss
Perhaps the most haunting part of the story is what happened inside NBC4’s studio.
The anchors began by covering what they believed was another breaking aviation emergency.
Then they learned they had lost contact with their own helicopter.
Finally came confirmation that it was NewsChopper4.
The station’s staff continued reporting while grieving colleagues who, minutes earlier, had simply been doing the same job from the air.
Moreno and Marciniw had gone up to tell viewers what had happened at one tragedy.
They never returned.
Now federal investigators face the task of explaining how a routine aerial news assignment became another fatal crash — and whether anything could have prevented it.
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