A veteran pilot nearing retirement, a 38-year-old bilingual journalist who called her job "the best in the world," and a 29-year-old Guatemalan man who had been in Los Angeles for just two days all died when an NBC news helicopter went down in the San Fernando Valley.
The crash happened just before 7 p.m. Tuesday in the Chatsworth area of Los Angeles. The helicopter, operated by Angel City Air under contract to NBC Los Angeles, had been dispatched to cover a deadly bus collision roughly a mile and a half away when it went down between two commercial buildings, killing everyone aboard and one pedestrian on the ground. NBC News reported that tributes from colleagues and family began pouring in the following morning.
The three victims, reporter Eliana Moreno, pilot George Marciniw, and bystander Edy Gutiérrez Mejia, came from vastly different walks of life. Their deaths are now at the center of overlapping federal and local investigations into a chain of events that began with a wrong-way SUV crash into a city bus and ended with a helicopter falling from the sky.
Moreno, 38, was born in Orange County and graduated from Chapman University in 2010 with a double degree in broadcast journalism and social science. She joined Angel City Air's helicopter team the same year she graduated and never left. For 16 years she served as an aerial journalist for NBC Los Angeles and its Spanish-language sister station, Telemundo 52, reporting live from the air in both English and Spanish.
Colleagues knew her energy before they saw her face. Lynette Romero, co-anchor of the NBC Los Angeles morning newscast, appeared on NBC's "TODAY" show the day after the crash and described what Moreno brought to the newsroom.
"She was just such a light, such a spark plug. She's teeny-tiny, but she had the biggest heart and enthusiasm. It was really contagious."
Jonathan Gonzalez, a weekend news anchor and reporter at the station, put it more bluntly in an interview with NBC News.
"She was d*** good at what she did."
Gonzalez said that when Moreno was in the helicopter, anchors on the ground trusted her completely. "When you have Eliana in the chopper, you know you're in good hands," he said. "She's going to ask, and she's going to answer every one of your questions in the best way and help carry the story forward."
On her official Instagram account, where she went by "Eli in the heli", Moreno had posted an image of herself in the news chopper with a caption that read: "I have the best job in the world." After running a half-marathon in May, she wrote: "I surpassed everything I thought I could ever do so let's see what I do next!"
Moreno was engaged to Robert Barrientos and had posted a video of the engagement on Instagram. Barrientos did not immediately respond to NBC News' request for comment. Chapman University spokesman Bob Hitchcock issued a statement saying the university was "grateful to know that she went on to pursue her passion for journalism and storytelling as a reporter."
Marciniw graduated from Burbank High School in 1974 and spent decades in the air over Southern California. He was believed to have accumulated more than 30 years of flight experience and logged more than 14,000 hours of flight time. He also worked as a flight instructor.
Fellow pilot Esteban Jimenez, who was at the crash scene Tuesday night, told NBC Los Angeles he had known Marciniw since the 1990s. Marciniw had once been Jimenez's instructor.
"I knew him since the '90s. He was my instructor at one time; he was my eyes and ears here in L.A. I just cannot believe this."
Jimenez said Marciniw had been nearing retirement. Moreno and Marciniw began flying together in 2023, and colleagues described a close working partnership. On Instagram, Marciniw had posted a photo of the chopper with the caption: "And that's a wrap for Friday night as the heavy fog rolls in with Eliana Moreno." Another post showed Dodger Stadium lit up at night with a note: "A few shots Eliana took as we flew over Dodgers after the game. 'Go Dodgers.'"
NBC Los Angeles meteorologist Belen De Leon captured the pilot's place in the station's identity. "When you thought about NewsChopper4, you thought about George," she said.
Gonzalez echoed that sentiment: "That's what he loved to do. He loved to fly."
Romero, the morning co-anchor, said the pair's shared devotion to the work offered some small measure of comfort. "They were both doing what they loved so much, and for me, that's comfort in knowing how happy they were," she said. "They loved breaking news, and they loved being in NewsChopper4."
The third victim never set foot inside the helicopter. Edy Gutiérrez Mejia, 29, known to loved ones as "Pichi," was a pedestrian on the ground in Chatsworth when the aircraft came down. He had been in Los Angeles for only two days. A cousin told NBC Los Angeles that Mejia had planned to pick up a car and take it home to sell.
Mejia lived in Cuilapa, a town of about 41,000 people in southeastern Guatemala. The Cuilapa mayor's office posted a statement on Facebook: "We offer our prayers for eternal rest and ask our Lord God to grant the family much patience during these moments of sorrow." His family was working to send his body back to Guatemala.
An unnamed person posted a tribute on Facebook: "May God give you the rest you deserve. A big hug all the way to heaven. We shared so many good times, there's so much I miss."
The helicopter had been dispatched to cover a collision that was itself fatal. AP News reported that 36-year-old Bailee Lynn Rios allegedly drove her SUV the wrong way on Nordhoff Street and struck a Los Angeles Metro bus around 5:03 p.m. Tuesday. Two bus passengers, Daniel Castillo, 46, and Gage Weida, 31, were killed, and six others were injured. Rios was arrested on murder charges, with bail set at $4 million.
Rios's mother, Cindy Rios, spoke publicly about the aftermath. "The fact that my daughter was involved and was the cause of it is just extremely disturbing," she said. "If anything, I'm sorry for the other families... My daughter's alive. People lost their lives."
The helicopter crashed roughly 1.5 miles from the bus collision site, the New York Post reported, going down between two commercial buildings on Mason Avenue. The impact ignited fires in several nearby vehicles. Breitbart reported that the explosion caused vehicles near the crash site to erupt in flames, and Just The News reported that the fire damaged four vehicles and two storage containers, with more than 50 firefighters responding.
Both the NTSB and the FAA announced they would investigate the helicopter crash. Eyewitness Zareh Sevanesian, who appeared on NBC's "TODAY" show, said the helicopter had been swaying before it began losing altitude. "It was just getting lower and lower and lower and lower," Sevanesian said.
NTSB investigator Fabian Salazar told reporters that a cockpit recording had captured sounds "consistent with the engine changing its speed." He called the video "probably the most important evidence that we have discovered so far." The NTSB said it planned to send a copy to its recorder lab for sound spectrum analysis.
LAPD investigator Harvey Freeman, addressing the bus collision, said the department was "still gathering information" and had "a lot of footwork to do in the process." Rios was suspected of reckless driving, running a red light, and possible DUI.
No mechanical cause for the helicopter crash has been confirmed. The investigation remains in its early stages.
Veteran NBC Los Angeles anchor Colleen Williams delivered the news to viewers Tuesday evening, visibly emotional on camera.
"We are coming on the air with heavy hearts tonight because we lost valued friends and colleagues... while on assignment tonight. We are going to take a couple of minutes to think about that, process it."
NBC Los Angeles and Telemundo 52 issued a joint 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."
Gonzalez summed up the loss in broader terms: "The world lost two people who cared deeply about this community and the communities they grew up in and lived in, and we lost two people who we care about deeply, too."
Five people are now dead across two linked incidents, two bus passengers, a journalist, a pilot, and a young man from Guatemala who happened to be standing in the wrong place. A wrong-way driver faces murder charges. Federal investigators are pulling apart cockpit recordings. And three families, in Orange County, in Burbank, and in a small Guatemalan town, are burying people who left the house that Tuesday expecting to come home.
