Eliana Moreno was on the air when NBC4 veteran news anchor Colleen Williams told viewers the station had lost contact with its helicopter crew after a crash in Chatsworth. Three people died and two others were taken to hospital after NewsChopper4 went down just before 19:00 local time on Tuesday.
Williams said, "We knew it was a news chopper. We knew we'd lost contact with our people out there, and we've just received confirmation". The helicopter belonged to NBC Los Angeles and also operated for Telemundo 52.
Chatsworth crash scene
The aircraft came down between two commercial buildings in the Chatsworth neighbourhood of Los Angeles. Fire from the crash spread to four vehicles and two storage containers, and more than 70 firefighters were deployed to the scene.
LAFD Captain Branden Silverman said, "We do have one confirmed patient that seemed to be outside of the helicopter when it crashed." He added, "That person was declared deceased on scene". Los Angeles Police Department said it was not yet known how many people were onboard.
Bus crash reporting
The helicopter was in the area reporting on a deadly bus crash earlier in the day, when two people were killed and six others were injured after an SUV crashed into a city bus in Chatsworth. Several news helicopters were in the area at the time, which is how the two incidents became linked at the same scene.
That sequence leaves one immediate factual question for the investigation: how many people were aboard when the helicopter hit the ground. The National Transportation Safety Board will lead the investigation into the crash, and the victim names had not been released.
