Moment news anchors announce colleagues have been killed in helicopter crash live on air

A news helicopter was taking footage for reports of a fatal bus accident yesterday evening (15 September) when it crashed.

NBC4 Los Angeles went on to confirm the chopper was one of its news aircrafts, as the Fire Department confirmed three people had died in the accident.

The victims of the crash have since been named as photojournalist Eliana Moreno and pilot George Marciniw from NBC's, alongside an unnamed pedestrian. Two others were transported to hospital.

The chopper was reporting on a deadly bus crash in the suburbs of Los Angeles at the time of the accident.

As the station said those on the helicopter were ‘valued friends and colleagues’, the news anchors tearfully confirmed live on air that it was their station’s news chopper after they had ‘lost contact’ with their team.

There had been a number of news helicopters in the area at the time, with reporters on the ground watching on as they were reporting from the bus crash that left at least two dead and six other people injured.

And NBC4 Los Angeles anchor Colleen Williams went on to say that they would be taking time at the station to ‘regroup’.

Confirming that it was their aircraft in the fatal accident, she said live on air: “We can now confirm that the chopper that went down in Chatsworth tonight, about two hours ago, was in fact news chopper four.

“We’ve been telling you that we’ve been piecing it together here, we knew it was a news chopper and we knew we’d lost contact with our people out there, and we’ve just received the confirmation that in fact news chopper four went down just before seven o’clock tonight in Chatsworth.

“We’re going to take a couple of minutes to think about that, to process and to regroup.”

Williams assured that if ‘anything should happen’ such as a news conference or any kind of update, the station would bring the news to its audience.

The camera then appeared to cut out, giving the colleagues a moment to process the incident that involved their team.

It was later confirmed that Moreno and Marciniw had died.

Fire from the helicopter crash spread to four vehicles and two storage containers, with more than 70 firefighters deployed to the scene, according to the LAFD.

Zareh Sevanesian told NBC he saw the helicopter crash while driving nearby. He said: "As we were driving, I looked over to my left. I saw the helicopter - something didn’t look right. And I told my wife, ‘That helicopter is not flying right.’”

Footage from inside the helicopter appeared to show Moreno say, 'You can't pull up?' before the chopper rapidly descended.

Zoey Tur, a veteran pilot who operated the same type of helicopter involved in the crash, said on X you could hear 'the low rotor RPM annunciator horn going off' in the footage.

She added: "You could also hear the engine rev down. This was an engine failure, and slow response into entering an auto-rotation by PiC [pilot in command]."

The National Transportation Safety Board and Federal Aviation Administration are currently investigating the cause of the crash.

In a joint statement, NBC 4 and Telemundo 52 said it was ‘deeply saddened to share that a helicopter providing aerial news coverage for NBC4 and Telemundo 52 was involved in a fatal accident’.

“We extend our heartfelt condolences to the families, friends and colleagues of those who lost their lives,” it added.

Mike Rogers, CBS Los Angeles' assignment editor, said of the accident, per the BBC: "That helicopter community is a small group of people, and it's just devastating to know that this has happened to one of those people, to our friends and our colleagues at NBC4."

While LA Mayor Karen Bass said she was 'absolutely devastated by the loss of life in Chatsworth tonight'.

"My heart is with the families and loved ones of those we lost in the tragic bus collision and helicopter crash," she wrote on X.