At first, the helicopter was simply doing what it had done countless times before — circling above Los Angeles as a breaking-news story unfolded below.
Then something went terribly wrong.
The aircraft suddenly began losing altitude, the footage from inside the chopper became increasingly chaotic, and a few haunting words were captured on the recording.
They were among the final words spoken by NBC4 aerial reporter Eliana Moreno.
Moreno, 38, was killed Tuesday evening when the NewsChopper4 went down in Chatsworth while covering a deadly crash involving an SUV and a Metro bus nearby, the LAFD said. Pilot George Marciniw was also killed, along with a third person on the ground. Another person was hospitalized.
The helicopter, a Eurocopter AS350, crashed shortly before 7 p.m. between commercial buildings in the 9100 block of North Mason Avenue, bursting into flames and setting nearby vehicles on fire.
But it was what happened in the moments before the crash that has now left viewers shaken. Footage recorded from inside the helicopter appears to show the aircraft becoming unstable as the camera begins to shake violently and the helicopter rapidly loses altitude.
Then Moreno can be heard speaking to the pilot, according to The Sun.
“What? You can’t pull up?”
Those words came only moments before the helicopter struck the ground.
The cause of the crash has not been determined, and federal investigators are now examining what happened. The National Transportation Safety Board and Federal Aviation Administration are investigating the fatal accident.
The tragedy unfolded just a short distance from another deadly scene.
Moreno and Marciniw had been providing aerial coverage of a Metro bus collision that had already left people dead and injured earlier Tuesday. Several news helicopters were in the area when NewsChopper4 went down.
Inside the NBC4 newsroom, the devastating realization slowly began to sink in.
Veteran anchor Colleen Williams was live on air when the station learned it had lost contact with its own helicopter.
“We can now confirm that the chopper that went down in Chatsworth tonight, about two hours ago, was in fact news chopper four,” she said through tears.
“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.”
She later told viewers:
“We are going to take a couple of minutes to think about that, process it and regroup,”
The broadcast was then cut off.
More than 70 firefighters raced to the scene as they fought to bring the massive blaze under control.
Moreno was a familiar face and voice to Southern California viewers and had spent years reporting from the air. She joined Angel City Air in 2010 and worked with several local television stations before becoming an aerial reporter for NBC4 and Telemundo 52.
She had also described aerial journalism as “the best job in the world.”
For Moreno, flying above Los Angeles had been more than simply a job. It was a career she had dreamed about since childhood, and one she continued to embrace for years. Her colleagues remembered her as a highly respected reporter who was often the voice viewers heard while major stories unfolded below.
NBC4 and Telemundo 52 said in a statement:
“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.”
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