A news helicopter belonging to NBC4 Los Angeles crashed in flames in a residential neighborhood of the city on Tuesday evening, killing at least three people and injuring a fourth, in a disaster that unfolded live on air as the station covered a separate deadly bus accident nearby.
The helicopter came down just before 7pm local time in Chatsworth, a neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley in the northwestern part of Los Angeles, striking a car park adjacent to a single-storey commercial building. The aircraft was destroyed on impact and caught fire, burning four cars and two storage containers before more than 50 firefighters brought the blaze under control. Los Angeles Fire Department spokesperson Captain Branden Silverman described the helicopter as "pretty well destroyed" and said crews were sorting through the rubble to establish how many of the victims had been on board. At least one of the three people confirmed dead was a pedestrian on the ground outside; the status of the others remained unclear. A fourth person was transported to hospital in unknown condition.
The crash occurred approximately 1.5 miles from the scene of an earlier accident that the helicopter had been sent to cover. About two hours before the crash, an SUV ploughed into a city MTA bus in the same Chatsworth area, killing at least two people and injuring six others — images circulating online showed roughly half the SUV embedded in the side of the bus. Los Angeles is one of America's most competitive television markets, and local stations routinely deploy helicopters to cover breaking news from the air, including fires, traffic incidents, and car chases. News crews on the ground near the bus crash reported hearing a loud bang and seeing plumes of smoke rising from a location about a block away.
The crash was confirmed in real time during a visibly emotional live broadcast on NBC4. Veteran anchor Colleen Williams, her voice shaking, told viewers the station had lost contact with its crew before receiving confirmation that it was their aircraft. "We knew it was a news chopper. We knew we'd lost contact with our people out there," she said, before coverage was cut. News helicopters typically carry two people — a pilot and a reporter or camera operator.
The National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration have both announced investigations into the cause of the crash. The connection between the helicopter's movements and the bus accident it was covering has not been established, and authorities said the two events may be coincidental. The incident has drawn attention to the risks faced by aircrews in one of the world's busiest urban airspaces, where multiple broadcasters operate helicopters simultaneously over major incidents.