Bailee Lynn Rios, 36, faces murder charges and $4.03 million bail after her SUV struck a Metro bus in Los Angeles, killing two passengers, and the NBC4 news helicopter that rushed to cover the wreckage crashed minutes later, killing three more.
Rios drove her SUV into a Metro Line 166 bus at what police described as "freeway speed" around 5:00 PM Tuesday, running a red light and T-boning the bus in a collision that killed passengers Gage Weida, 31, and Daniel Castillo, 46. Six other people were injured, some critically. An LA Urban Search and Rescue team had to pull at least one person from beneath the vehicle, suffering what responders described as "crushing" injuries.
About two hours later, NBC4's NewsChopper4 arrived over the wreckage to provide aerial coverage. The helicopter suddenly lost altitude, fell straight down into a parking lot at the intersection of Nordhoff Street and DeSoto Avenue in the Chatsworth neighborhood, and burst into flames. Aerial reporter Eliana Moreno, 38, and pilot George Marciniw, 70, were killed. So was a 29-year-old pedestrian on the ground, identified by the New York Post as Edy Gutierrez Mejia. A fourth person was hospitalized.
LAPD charged Rios with murder Wednesday morning and set bail at $4.03 million. Investigators suspect reckless driving and are still testing for a possible DUI. The department said it would present the charges to the district attorney.
The sequence is staggering in its speed. A single reckless act on a Tuesday afternoon set off a chain that left five people dead, a news helicopter in pieces, and more than 70 fire department personnel scrambling across two crash sites in the same part of Los Angeles.
LA Fire Department Captain Branden Silverman told reporters the helicopter was "pretty well destroyed." Four nearby vehicles were threatened by the blaze, and the intersection at Nordhoff and DeSoto was expected to remain closed for "quite some time."
Audio recovered from inside the helicopter captured the final moments. Marciniw, a veteran pilot with more than 14,000 logged flight hours, said "uh oh." Moreno responded: "You can't pull up?" Then the aircraft fell.
An unidentified friend of the crew told Fox Los Angeles that the cause appeared to be engine failure.
"It's heartbreaking to see the engine quit."
The FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board, the federal agency that investigates aviation accidents, have both said they will send investigators to the crash site. No official cause has been determined.
Moreno graduated from Chapman University in 2010 with degrees in broadcast journalism and political science and began her career in news helicopters that same year. She worked at KCAL 9 and KCBS 2 before joining NBC4's NewsChopper4 around 2018 or 2019. She and Marciniw had been flying as a team since 2023 and, as Breitbart reported, had logged hundreds of hours together.
On her Instagram account, "Eli in the Heli", Moreno once wrote about the demands of the job:
"After working 76 hours since Sunday, I'm almost done! I can't complain though because I have the best job in the world."
In another post, she reflected on what the work meant to her:
"I did something I never thought I would ever do. I surpassed everything I thought I could ever do, so let's see what I do next!"
Moreno was engaged to Robert Barrientos, 47, a father of two. They announced the engagement on Facebook in October and had been together at least three years. In May, the couple ran the Hoag OC half-marathon together, with Moreno finishing in under two hours, despite what she described as lifelong bad asthma.
Marciniw, 70, had more than three decades of flight experience. His 14,000 hours in the air made him one of the most seasoned news helicopter pilots in Los Angeles. Fox News reported that both Moreno and Marciniw were employees of Angel City Air, the company that operated NewsChopper4 for NBC.
The crash adds to a grim toll. At least eight fatal crashes involving news helicopters have occurred in the United States since 2000, killing 16 people before Tuesday's disaster.
NBC4 reporter Robert Kovacik was already on the ground covering the bus crash when the helicopter went down. An anchor broke into his live report and directed him toward a massive plume of black smoke rising from the Chatsworth neighborhood.
NBC4 anchor Colleen Williams, visibly shaken, told viewers on air:
"We understand there may be an aircraft down. We don't have any more specific information than that."
Kovacik drove toward the smoke. At the scene, Fox 11 reporter Ed Laskos met him and delivered the news. "It's a chopper, a media chopper," Laskos said. Kovacik asked: "Are you ok? It's not you guys, is it?" Laskos put his arms around him.
Kovacik tried to push past police and firefighters to reach the wreckage. A police officer told him: "We are gonna get them evacuated. This isn't safe." Kovacik, still broadcasting, refused to back off.
"Dude, that's my crew in there, that is my own crew."
Back in the studio, Williams confirmed the worst. Through tears, she told viewers:
"We are not in contact with our television news helicopter."
Then, a moment later: "We have lost contact with our people."
An unidentified female reporter ran past cameras in tears at the scene. Later that night, LA Mayor Karen Bass was seen consoling Kovacik in person.
NBC4 and Telemundo issued a joint statement reported by the Daily Mail:
"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."
Bass posted on social media that she was "absolutely devastated by the loss of life in Chatsworth tonight" and urged the public to stay clear of the area. Governor Gavin Newsom offered condolences "with the victims and families of tonight's devastating Metro bus and helicopter crashes in Chatsworth, and with the entire NBC4 family." FCC Chairman Brendan Carr called it "very sad news."
Gage Weida was identified by the medical examiner Wednesday morning. Daniel Castillo, 46, was identified earlier. Both were passengers on a city bus, riding home on a Tuesday evening, killed by a driver who police say blew through a red light at freeway speed.
Rios now sits in a cell on $4.03 million bail. The DUI tests have not come back yet. The NTSB has not released findings on the helicopter. And five families are burying people who were alive at 4:59 PM on a Tuesday afternoon.
Accountability starts with the person behind the wheel. If the evidence holds up, a murder charge is exactly the right response to driving like the rules don't apply, because five people just paid the price for that arrogance.
