Heartbreaking News: A routine breaking news assignment turned into a nightmare that claimed three lives in the Chatsworth section of the San Fernando Valley.
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What started as coverage of a deadly SUV-and-Metro-bus collision on Nordhoff Street quickly spiraled into a second tragedy when NBC4 and Telemundo 52’s NewsChopper4 went down and burst into flames, taking two respected aviation journalists with it and killing a bystander on the ground.
The names now circulating through every LA newsroom and social media timeline are Eliana Moreno and George Marciniw, two names whose work you’ve absolutely seen if you’ve ever caught SoCal’s breaking news coverage from above. Moreno was a familiar voice for NBC4 and Telemundo 52 during the station’s aerial coverage, while Marciniw served as the pilot who kept the chopper in the air. Both were employed by Angel City Air, the outfit that operates NewsChopper4 as well as KTLA’s Sky5.
The crash went down just before 7 p.m. Tuesday in the 9100 block of North Mason Avenue, sandwiched between commercial buildings less than a quarter mile from where the bus crash they were covering had just happened. LAFD Capt. Branden Silverman described the wreckage as “pretty well destroyed,” noting investigators would need to comb through it just to confirm how many people were actually inside, that’s how violent this impact was.
Five lives total between the bus collision and the helicopter crash.
NBC and Telemundo released a statement honoring their fallen team members, expressing that the stations were “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,” and extending their condolences to the families left behind.
Now the FAA and NTSB are stepping in to figure out exactly what went wrong. NTSB spokesperson Jennifer Gabris confirmed investigators were on the case immediately, stating, “We are investigating. An NTSB investigator is expected to arrive on scene tomorrow morning. We continue to gather information at this time.” That investigation could take months, but the community isn’t waiting to start grieving.