NTSB to analyze live broadcast video from LA helicopter crash

Federal investigators will send video and audio from a live television report broadcast aboard an NBC4 Los Angeles news helicopter to a National Transportation Safety Board laboratory, calling the recording among the most important evidence in Tuesday's crash that killed three people in Chatsworth.

The helicopter, an Airbus Helicopters AS350 B-2 registered N358TV, went down about 7 p.m. between two commercial buildings on Mason Avenue near Nordhoff Street in Chatsworth, in the San Fernando Valley. Aerial reporter Eliana Moreno and pilot George Marciniw were killed, along with a man on the ground. Two other people were hurt, the Los Angeles Fire Department said.

Moreno and Marciniw had been covering a fatal collision between a Los Angeles Metro bus and an SUV a short distance away. The helicopter had been in the air for about an hour when it came down, according to The Desk, a trade publication covering the broadcast industry.

What the NTSB has so far

Fabian Salazar, a senior air safety investigator for the safety board, said at a briefing Wednesday that the helicopter was on an electronic newsgathering flight, carrying a pilot and a local television reporter to cover a traffic collision. The aircraft was substantially damaged and caught fire, and an investigator was dispatched because the accident involved a fatality. The crash sequence and the helicopter's altitude remain under investigation.

Investigators plan to obtain a pristine copy of the live-report recording and send it to the agency's recorder laboratory for sound-spectrum analysis. Salazar said the audio appears to contain sounds consistent with changes in engine speed, as well as tones that may have been pilot advisories, and cautioned that the agency has not determined a cause.

We are clearly hearing sounds that are consistent with the engine changing its speed

Safety board investigators, Federal Aviation Administration personnel and representatives for the helicopter's airframe and engine manufacturers examined the wreckage Wednesday, and the aircraft will later be moved to a secure facility for further examination. Investigators will also review maintenance records, weather information, pilot training and video from nearby security cameras, and have asked anyone with information about either crash to write to witness@ntsb.gov.

A preliminary report is expected within about 30 days, and a final report carrying a probable cause determination could take as long as 18 months. Asked generally about engine failure, Salazar said helicopter pilots are trained to enter autorotation, using the rotor system to descend and land, but said he was not drawing conclusions about this crash.

What the live feed shows

The helicopter's camera was streaming live video when the aircraft went down. In the footage, the camera zooms out, several alarms sound, and Moreno can be heard saying, "You can't pull up?" before the picture goes black, according to an account published by MyNewsLA. The site said the alarms appeared to indicate an engine failure.

Video footage reviewed by The Desk showed multiple alarms sounding in the helicopter about 10 seconds before it plummeted to the ground.

As the station began reporting the crash, its news team did not know the helicopter belonged to it. KNBC confirmed its involvement in a statement broadcast around 9 p.m. local time, and about two hours later said Moreno and Marciniw were aboard, The Desk reported. Robert Kovacik, an NBC4 reporter at the bus collision, saw black smoke and went to the crash site, The Associated Press reported.

The man killed on the ground was Edy Gutierrez Mejia, 29, who died in a business parking lot, the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner's Office said. He was from Guatemala, the country's consulate confirmed, according to The Associated Press. He had arrived in Los Angeles hours before the crash.

Contract crews above Los Angeles

Moreno and Marciniw were employees of Angel City Air, which operated the helicopter and provides aerial newsgathering services to KNBC, Channel 4, and KVEA, Channel 52, the Telemundo station in Los Angeles. Both stations are part of NBCUniversal, which is owned by Comcast, and are based in Universal City. The stations issued a joint statement about the crash.

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 helicopters have been phased out in some smaller and medium-sized television markets, where the cost of keeping a full-time pilot and photojournalist, plus a mechanic, can exceed $100,000 a month, The Desk reported. They remain more common in Los Angeles and New York, where stations either pool the expense of aerial coverage or carry budgets large enough to keep an aircraft of their own.

Aircraft used by news organizations in California are also bound by state labor laws that limit how many hours a pilot may fly, and are subject to annual maintenance and preflight safety requirements, The Desk reported, citing an aviation expert. The site described Tuesday's crash as the deadliest involving a newsgathering aircraft in three years, after a helicopter used by the Philadelphia station WPVI went down in December 2023.

The crash ignited a fire that spread to vehicles parked nearby before crews put it out. Four cars and two storage containers were damaged, Jennifer Middleton of the Los Angeles Fire Department said, and a warehouse worker who had been in the parking lot was taken to a hospital.

The crew of NewsChopper 4

Eliana Moreno joined Angel City Air in September 2010, the same year she graduated from Chapman University in Orange with a degree in broadcast journalism.

Born in Orange County, she reported for several Southern California outlets and had worked at NBC4 and Telemundo 52, moving between English and Spanish on air. She was 38 and engaged to be married.

Moreno posted from the aircraft under the Instagram handle eli_in_the_heli and covered police pursuits, wildfires and other breaking news from the air. She received a 2023 award from the Radio and Television News Association of Southern California for continuing television coverage. Romero recalled a staff visit to Whiteman Airport in Pacoima, where Moreno showed colleagues her cameras aboard NewsChopper 4.

Marciniw grew up in Southern California, graduated from Burbank High School in 1974 and had more than 30 years of flight experience.

They were both doing what they loved so much, and for me, that's comfort in knowing how happy they were. They loved breaking news, and they loved being in NewsChopper 4.

He had logged more than 14,000 flight hours and was nearing retirement. He and Moreno had been flying together since 2023. Romero said he still lived in Burbank, and on Instagram he described himself as a news pilot and posted photographs of sunsets over Los Angeles, some of which he credited to Moreno.

The collision they were covering

About two hours before the helicopter went down, police said Bailee Lynn Rios drove a 2004 Ford Expedition the wrong way down De Soto Avenue, ran a red light and nearly struck another vehicle before hitting a Los Angeles Metro bus. The collision, at Nordhoff Street and De Soto Avenue, happened around 5 p.m. Two people were killed and six were injured.

One passenger was fully ejected from the bus and another was partially ejected, police said. Rios, 36, of Simi Valley, was arrested on suspicion of murder. Bail was set at $4 million. Prosecutors had not filed charges as of Wednesday.

Mayor Karen Bass said she was devastated by the loss of life in Chatsworth, and Governor Gavin Newsom said his thoughts were with the victims of both crashes and with the NBC4 newsroom.