LOS ANGELES — Three people were killed when an NBC4 news helicopter crashed and burst into flames Tuesday night in Chatsworth not far from a serious accident involving a Metro bus that also left three people dead.

The area was already swarming with police, fire officials and the news media because of the bus crash when there was a fireball and people heard a loud explosion a few blocks away.

The chopper went down between two commercial buildings in the 9100 block of Mason Avenue around 7 p.m.

The LAFD said at least one person on the ground was killed. Two others were taken to a hospital.

KNBC said reporter Eliana Moreno and pilot George Marciniw were killed.

NBC4 news anchor Colleen Williams confirmed around 9 p.m. that the station’s Chopper 4 had crashed. She had earlier told viewers that the station had lost contact with its team in the air.

“We are going to take a couple of minutes to think about that, to process, and to regroup,” Williams said before the station ended its live coverage.

Moreno and Marciniw’s last moments tragically were captured on a live broadcast. Video from their helicopter shows an aerial view of the bus crash, with the sound of the helicopter in the background.

Then, the sound of the engine’s motor winds down, the angle of the camera begins to descend, and Moreno is heard saying “You can’t pull up?” before the image cuts out.

Zoey Tur, a veteran news helicopter pilot who operated the type of helicopter the NBC4 crew was flying, said the aircraft has “an emergency horn that sounds when either there’s a low RPM issue or the helicopter loses hydraulics.”

“If you listen carefully to the on board transmission, the microphone picks up the engine shutting down,” Tur told The Times. “First, the engine starts winding down, which in turn reduces power to the router blades. Then you hear the horn warning of low rotor RPM. You can even hear the blade slap slow down.”

But, Tur pointed out, there was enough fuel on the helicopter to cause a fire, so why the rotors stopped spinning is currently unknown. Both the National Transportation Safety Board and Federal Aviation Administration are investigating.

Moreno “graduated from Chapman University with a degree in broadcast journalism and political science. She’d been flying in news choppers since the year 2010. George Marciniw, her helicopter pilot, grew up here in Southern California. He graduated from Burbank High School in 1974. They began flying together in 2023. George and Eliana often flew together, and you probably recall she often referred to him when they were covering stories together,” Williams said.

The helicopter crashed in a driveway between two warehouses, smashing into a pair of truck cargo containers. Four nearby vehicles also caught fire. Neither of the warehouse buildings were hit.

Woodland Hills resident Allyona Sevanesian said she and her husband were en route to a grocery store when she saw a cloud of smoke and they investigated “to make sure everybody was OK” but found a sobering scene.

“We drove there ... behind the building,” the publicist said. “There was a gentleman that was hit by the helicopter.”

By 7:30 p.m., the flames were extinguished by police and fire crews at the scene.

Earlier in the evening, three people were killed and as many as six others injured when an SUV smashed into the side of a Metro bus in Chatsworth. The lodged vehicle trapped bus riders, who had to be extricated by first responders.

A Metro Line 166 bus was traveling eastbound on Nordhoff Street at 5:02 p.m. when it was hit by the SUV traveling southbound on De Soto Avenue, according to L.A. Metro.

Those injured in the bus crash were taken to a local hospital, according to Jennifer Middleton, a spokesperson for the Los Angeles Fire Department. No information was immediately available on the severity of the injuries. The Fire Department said it did not have a breakdown of how many of the eight people were in the bus or the SUV.

Soon after the wreck, local TV news video showed the front half of the SUV embedded in the side of the bus. Later, the vehicle was removed and a gaping hole was visible in the Metro bus’ side, with wreckage strewn around the scene. A white tent was erected nearby.

About 50 people, including families with young children, were gathered near the site of the bus crash late Tuesday.

“Anybody could be gone in a minute, you know?” said Winnetka resident Michael Sanchez, a physical therapist. When he learned of the tragedies, he decided, “let me go over there, look at the crash and say a couple of prayers.”

At a news conference around 9:45 p.m. near where the helicopter went down, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass praised first responders who rushed to two “incredibly difficult” incidents within hours.

Los Angeles County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath, whose district includes the neighborhood of Chatsworth, also spoke, saying she wanted to “acknowledge just how many people are carrying this tragedy this evening. The riders who were on that bus, the Metro operator, and our bus operators across our system who mourn.”

“Members of our local news community who came here to do their jobs and experienced a profound tragedy of their own. This has been a deeply traumatic day for far too many people.”

More than 70 firefighters responded to the scene of the helicopter crash, according to LAFD Capt. Rico Gross. “We did have a loss of lives, three members of the community, and two members were transported to the hospital,” he said.

When NBC4 resumed its live coverage around 9:40 p.m., anchor Williams said the news station’s helicopter team had been out covering the bus crash. “We’re getting ready to go on the air with that ... and we see this large plume of smoke, and realize something else has happened.

“Just a couple blocks away, our helicopter went down, it crashed,” she said.

NBC-TV Channel 4 and Telemundo’s KVEA-TV Channel 52 said in a statement late Tuesday, “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.”

The aviation tragedy was not the first that NBC4 had experienced.

In 1977, Francis Gary Powers was killed in a helicopter crash in Encino while working as a “Telecopter” reporter for KNBC.

Powers and a KNBC cameraman, George Spears, were returning from covering brushfires north of Santa Barbara when the helicopter Powers was piloting crashed into an open field near the Sepulveda Dam, carving a 21-foot-long gouge in the ground and killing both men.

According to The Times’ archives, Powers was a “conservative flier” who, on his final flight, ran out of fuel.

Powers was a figure in Cold War history. While employed as a U-2 spy-plane pilot for the CIA, Powers was shot down over the Soviet Union in 1960.

In 2000, a Fox 11 helicopter covering the Academy Awards crashed and burst into flames at Van Nuys Airport. The pilot reported mechanical difficulties moments before the crash in the southeast corner of the airport, The Times reported at the time. A television helicopter pilot from a competing station who overheard emergency radio transmissions from the helicopter said the craft was headed for the Shrine Auditorium just after 10 p.m. when the pilot reported a loss of hydraulic power.

In 2019, an ABC7 chopper was struck by an object believed to be a drone while flying over downtown Los Angeles. No one was hurt.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom posted: “Our hearts are with the victims and families of tonight’s devastating Metro bus and helicopter crashes in Chatsworth, and with the entire NBC4 family.”

On Wednesday morning, the station was grieving the tragedy.

“They were sacrificing their lives in service of their community,” NBC morning anchor Lynette Romero told viewers, with her co-anchors by her side. “They were determined and dedicated until the very end doing the job they loved so much. Our hearts are heavy this morning but we are here with you, we are here for you as we try to navigate these tragedies together.”

For reporters on the ground covering the bus crash, it was not immediately clear what happened when the chopper went down. First responders and reporters rushed to the scene and found the helicopter burning and a man injured nearby.

—Times staff writers Meg James and Jasmine Mendez contributed to this report.

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