An SUV slammed into a city bus, then the news helicopters took flight. How one tragedy led to another

“The helicopter just crashed!” a voice in the crowd yelled, drawing eyes away from the splayed-out wreckage of a bus collision that claimed two lives.

Los Angeles County Fire Capt. Brandon Silverman looked behind him to find a large plume of black smoke rising from a parking lot one block east. His team, which had just gruelingly removed passengers stuck between scraps of metal and glass, turned its attention to another deadly disaster Tuesday night.

Earlier in the evening, two bus passengers, Gage Weida, 31, and Daniel Castillo, 46, were killed when an SUV plowed into a bus in the suburban Los Angeles neighborhood of Chatsworth, officials said.

What authorities called a “preventable” tragedy – a woman allegedly driving under the influence ramming into a metro bus filled with passengers returning home from work – led to a domino effect, permanently altering the course of three more families’ lives.

Just two hours after the bus collision, a news helicopter for KNBC-TV NBC4 and KVEA-TV providing aerial coverage of the accident crashed and ignited a blaze, killing aerial photojournalist-reporter Eliana Moreno, pilot George Marciniw and Edy Gutierrez Mejia, a young tourist on the ground.

A loud explosion added fresh horror to the scene of the bus collision before first responders with the fire and police departments and news crews, including NBC4, quickly redirected their efforts to the inferno.

“To have two incidents of that significance in that short amount of time within a few blocks of each other is definitely a unique situation for any department,” Silverman told CNN.

Now, investigators with the National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration are trying to determine what caused the news helicopter to go down, pointing to a video taken as the aircraft descended as a critical piece of evidence.

Meanwhile, the driver involved in the bus collision, Bailee Lynn Rios, faces a possible maximum sentence of life in prison after being charged with second-degree murder, driving under the influence and reckless driving, according to Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman.

“People on that bus at about 5 p.m. were either going to work or maybe coming from work. They might be going to get a bite to eat, to see family or friends,” Hochman said at a Thursday news conference. “What they did not expect is what was about to happen.”

Five lives were ended by the tragic sequence of events, leaving the community shaken and loved ones grieving: a father of four, an LA resident with an upcoming birthday, a Guatemalan tourist who recently landed in LA, an engaged reporter and a soon-to-retire veteran pilot.

The heavy emotional toll on their families, first responders and the broadcast news community has prompted outpourings of grief from city and state leaders.

“My heart is with the families whose lives changed forever Tuesday night. Simply going to work, coming from work to come back to your family, you expect to see them,” Mayor Karen Bass said at a vigil Thursday. “And they never arrive.”

The dual tragedies on Tuesday evening unfolded in rapid succession.

Around 5 p.m., the Los Angeles Fire Department arrived at a chilling scene: an SUV lodged almost fully inside an LA Metro bus. Some people were trapped inside vehicles, while another was tossed out into an intersection.

Rios, driving a Ford Expedition, ran a red light and nearly struck another car before crashing into the bus as it traveled east, according to the Los Angeles Police Department. Rios was allegedly impaired by drugs and had narcotics inside the SUV as she drove “well beyond the speed limit,” Hochman said.

“She entered into opposing traffic because she was approaching a red light where cars were stopped, and she didn’t stop,” Hochman said. “At full force, she plunged into that metro bus.”

CNN has reached out to her attorney for comment.

The bus driver, who had been injured in the wreck, quickly called the bus operating division for help, said Stephanie Wiggins, CEO of the LA County Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

Paramedics pronounced Weida and Castillo dead at the site of the collision. The fire department’s search and rescue team cut part of a car door away to rescue Rios while her SUV was still lodged in the bus, Silverman recounted.

After a trapped bus passenger and the SUV driver were rescued from the vehicles using hydraulic tools like the Jaws of Life and reciprocating saws, they were rushed to the hospital, according to Silverman. Four others had non-life-threatening injuries.

NBC4’s Moreno reported on television from a helicopter flying above the scene: “This is a horrific crash here in Chatsworth.”

A little over an hour after first responders flocked to the bus crash site, Silverman arrived. He stood in front of a group of reporters to provide an update on the bus collision, then waited to do a live interview with NBC4 reporter Robert Kovacik at 7 p.m. at the scene.

By that point, the group of 56 personnel from the fire department had mostly cleared the scene. Silverman was the only crew member still there, along with a rescue ambulance crew completing paperwork for the victims. Several LAPD officers were nearby for traffic and crowd control.

The dust had seemed to settle: Some in the large crowd gathered at the scene pulled out their phones to livestream while others stood there to process the shock or search for loved ones, according to Silverman.

Ronaldo Bolanos/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images

But at 6:57 p.m., Silverman was alerted about the helicopter by someone in the crowd.

“That’s when I and the rescue ambulance that were on scene … they reported it to our dispatch center immediately over the radio and we both responded over to that incident,” he said.

Silverman jumped into his white Durango trying to find the crash, as the exact location was still unknown.

When 7 p.m. came, NBC4 anchors Colleen Williams and Jonathan Gonzalez reported a thick black plume of smoke near the bus accident site, saying, “We’re not sure what this is,” adding, “All we can tell you is something has happened out there.”

Williams and Gonzalez asked Kovacik about the smoke as he reported at the bus collision scene, and he responded, “I don’t think it’s anything related.”

Kovacik, who suddenly saw people running to see what happened, later drove swiftly to the source of the smoke.

Moments before the aircraft fell to the ground less than a mile away, sounds of the engine changing speed and alerts to the pilot could be heard on video, NTSB investigator-in-charge Fabian Salazar said at a Wednesday news conference.

In the live feed from the helicopter, a person is heard exclaiming something in the background before another voice is heard asking, “You can’t pull up?”

A loud buzzing noise is then heard before the feed shakes intensely and the chopper appears to descend rapidly. It hit a shipping container on its descent, according to Silverman.

Within minutes, Silverman and the ambulance arrived at a storage facility parking lot behind a large one-story commercial building to find LAPD officers grabbing fire extinguishers and dragging a man away from the burning wreckage.

The ambulance crew started administering first aid to the victim, later identified as Mejia, but could not save him.

From Edy Gutierrez Mejia/Facebook

Meanwhile, Silverman searched for more victims inside the helicopter, which had burst into flames, and in the surrounding parked cars, igniting because the helicopter’s jet fuel leaked.

The blaze seemed unmanageable: Fire extinguishers from both the police and the fire departments “couldn’t even put a dent in the flames that were coming from the helicopter,” Silverman said.

When fire department crews got there minutes later, they immediately started attacking the fire and protecting the cars and the building near the blaze. They searched inside the building to ensure the fire had not spread there, according to Silverman. Four cars and two storage containers were damaged by the inferno, the fire department said.

A group of 67 firefighters knocked down most of the fire quickly and stopped the jet fuel from leaking further, Silverman said. Then, they searched through the helicopter wreckage to find victims on board.

As the news of the helicopter crash spread, media crews from the bus accident scene began rushing to the helicopter site and were told by law enforcement to evacuate because the situation was too dangerous, NBC4 footage showed.

Kovacik, the NBC4 anchor, heard it may have been a news chopper and saw a reporter from another station in tears, he said on air. Kovacik is heard checking in with colleagues, saying, “Are you OK? It’s not you guys, is it?”

The close-knit Southern California news community held its breath as it waited to hear which of its outlets would now be the subject of their reporting.

NBC4’s anchors told viewers the station lost contact with its helicopter crew. All the other stations told Kovacik it was not their chopper, he said. But as he realized it may have been his colleagues in the helicopter, Kovacik could be heard holding back tears.

Kovacik shakily asked Silverman who the helicopter belonged to. Silverman tells him he did not have that information.

“It soon became apparent through the news organizations … word started to travel whose helicopter it was, and it turned out to be NBC’s,” Silverman said.

Pilots and tower controllers also began deducing the downed helicopter belonged to NBC4.

“TV 4 is not up here with us. We believe it’s TV 4 that went down,” one pilot is heard saying, according to air traffic control audio obtained by CNN.

Around 9 p.m., Williams delivered the news to NBC4 viewers, her voice audibly distressed.

“We can now confirm that the chopper that went down in Chastworth tonight, about two hours ago, was in fact News Chopper 4,” Williams said.

The team had lost two fixtures of the station: Moreno, who was providing updates earlier on the bus accident, and pilot Marciniw.

“We are going to take a couple of minutes to think about that, to process and to regroup,” Williams told viewers. The station temporarily switched to other programming.

On the ground, it quickly became “an emotional scene,” Silverman recounted.

“It reminded me of an incident where a firefighter is severely injured or killed in the line of duty … and normally the members of the media are giving us their condolences,” Silverman said. “In this case, it was the other way around.”

Later that night, Mayor Bass visited the crash site.

“This is a very, very, very tragic day in Los Angeles,” Bass said. “We lost five Angelenos today.”

The next morning, NBC4 anchors tried to make sense of the tragedy: “So many of us are still waking up in disbelief. It’s hard to process this,” anchor Annabelle Sedano said.

On Thursday night, Bass and Los Angeles City Councilmember John Lee honored the five Los Angeles residents at a vigil.

“May we remember Daniel, Gage, Eliana, George and Edy for how they lived, for the people they loved and for the lives they touched,” Lee said.

Weida, a passenger on the bus, was planning to celebrate his 32nd birthday with his family this Saturday.

“Instead, they’re not going to be coming out for his birthday, they’ll be coming out for his funeral,” Hochman said Thursday.

Another bus passenger, Castillo, was a devoted father of four “who had a way of bringing laughter and light into every room he walked into,” his daughter Johaunna Castillo said on a GoFundMe page for the family.

On the helicopter, bilingual journalist Moreno, 38, was passionate about telling the stories of Southern California from the sky. Her colleague, Marciniw, had decades of experience as a pilot and is remembered for “his kindness and warm smile,” Lee said.

George Marciniw/Instagram

Mejia, 29, a pedestrian, had been visiting LA from Cuilapa, Guatemala.

The back-to-back disasters in Chatsworth have left the Los Angeles community completely shaken. It is incredibly rare for a neighborhood to experience two fatal, high-profile accidents in a span of just two hours, Silverman said.

“Individually they were tragic events, and combined, I think it’s even more of a shock to community members,” Silverman said.

As the LA community mourns the losses, the LAPD is investigating the bus collision and the NTSB and the FAA were at the scene piecing together evidence and conducting witness interviews about the helicopter crash.

“In gathering that factual data, we’ll be able to paint a better picture of the actual accident sequence,” Salazar of the NTSB said.

A preliminary report on the chopper crash is expected in 30 days, followed by a final report detailing probable cause, which can take up to 18 months, according to the NTSB.

Rios, the SUV driver who had been receiving treatment for her injuries, was wheeled into court on a stretcher Friday, video shows. The judge said she was not medically fit for arraignment, according to CNN affiliate KTLA . Her bail was set at $4.1 million and she is scheduled to appear in court on Monday, according to court records.

“It’ll be a long road ahead for people to recover from this,” Silverman said.

CNN’s Nic F. Anderson, Diego Mendoza, Amanda Jackson, Karina Tsui, Andy Rose, Danielle Sills, Taylor Galgano, Alea Motwane and Jessica Flynn contributed to this report.

“直升机坠毁了！”人群中有人喊道，将人们的目光从一辆巴士相撞后散落一地的残骸中吸引开来，这场事故夺去了两条生命。

洛杉矶县消防队长布兰登·西尔弗曼回头望去，发现东边一个街区外的停车场升起一股滚滚黑烟。他的团队刚刚费尽九牛二虎之力才将困在金属和玻璃碎片间的乘客救出，周二晚上又将注意力转向了另一场致命灾难。

据官员称，当天傍晚早些时候，在洛杉矶郊区查茨沃斯社区，一辆 SUV 撞上一辆公交车，造成两名公交车乘客死亡，分别是 31 岁的盖奇·韦达和 46 岁的丹尼尔·卡斯蒂略。

当局称之为“可预防的”悲剧——一名女子涉嫌酒后驾车撞上一辆满载下班回家乘客的地铁公交车——引发了多米诺骨牌效应，永久地改变了另外三个家庭的生活轨迹。

巴士相撞事故发生仅两小时后，一架为 KNBC-TV NBC4 和 KVEA-TV 提供空中报道的新闻直升机坠毁并引发火灾，导致空中摄影记者 Eliana Moreno、飞行员 George Marciniw 和地面上的年轻游客 Edy Gutierrez Mejia 丧生。

一声巨响给公交车相撞现场增添了新的恐怖气氛，随后消防和警察部门的急救人员以及包括 NBC4 在内的新闻摄制组迅速将注意力转移到火场。

“在短短的时间内，在相距几个街区的地方发生两起如此重大的事件，对于任何部门来说绝对都是独一无二的情况，”西尔弗曼告诉 CNN。

现在，美国国家运输安全委员会和联邦航空管理局的调查人员正在试图确定新闻直升机坠毁的原因，他们指出飞机下降时拍摄的一段视频是关键证据。

与此同时，据洛杉矶县地方检察官内森·霍克曼称，涉嫌参与公交车碰撞事故的司机贝莉·林恩·里奥斯被控二级谋杀、酒后驾驶和鲁莽驾驶，可能面临终身监禁的最高刑罚。

霍克曼在周四的新闻发布会上说：“下午5点左右，那辆公交车上的乘客要么是去上班的，要么是下班的。他们可能正打算吃点东西，或者去看望家人或朋友。但他们万万没想到接下来会发生什么。”

这一系列悲剧事件夺去了五条生命，令社区震惊，亲人悲痛欲绝：一位四个孩子的父亲，一位即将过生日的洛杉矶居民，一位最近抵达洛杉矶的危地马拉游客，一位订婚的记者和一位即将退休的资深飞行员。

这场悲剧给他们的家人、急救人员和广播新闻界带来了沉重的精神打击，也引发了市、州领导人的深切哀悼。

“我的心与那些周二晚上生活彻底改变的家庭同在。你只是去上班，下班回家，期待着见到家人，”市长凯伦·巴斯在周四的守夜活动上说。“但他们再也回不来了。”

周二晚间发生的两起悲剧接连发生。

下午5点左右，洛杉矶消防局赶到现场，发现一辆SUV几乎完全卡在一辆洛杉矶地铁公交车内。一些人被困在车内，另一人则被甩到十字路口。

据洛杉矶警察局称，里奥斯驾驶一辆福特探险者SUV闯红灯，险些撞上另一辆车，随后撞上了向东行驶的巴士。霍克曼表示，里奥斯当时疑似吸毒，车内还藏有毒品，而且她“严重超速”驾驶。

霍克曼说：“她当时正接近一个红灯路口，那里其他车辆都停了下来，但她没有停车，而是驶入了对向车道。她全速撞上了那辆公交车。”

CNN已联系她的律师寻求置评。

洛杉矶县大都会交通管理局首席执行官斯蒂芬妮·威金斯表示，在事故中受伤的公交车司机迅速打电话给公交运营部门寻求帮助。

急救人员当场宣布韦达和卡斯蒂略死亡。西尔弗曼回忆说，消防部门的搜救队切开部分车门，救出了里奥斯，当时她的SUV还卡在公交车里。

据西尔弗曼称，救援人员使用液压工具（例如液压剪和往复锯）将一名被困的公交车乘客和SUV司机从车内救出后，立即将他们送往医院。另有四人受了轻伤。

NBC4 的莫雷诺从直升机上飞过事故现场，通过电视报道说：“这是查茨沃斯发生的一起可怕的坠机事故。”

在救援人员赶到巴士事故现场一个多小时后，西尔弗曼也到了。他站在一群记者面前，向他们通报了巴士碰撞事故的最新情况，然后等待晚上7点在现场接受NBC4记者罗伯特·科瓦奇克的现场采访。

到那时，消防部门的56名人员基本已经撤离现场。西尔弗曼是唯一留在现场的队员，还有一辆救援救护车上的医护人员正在为伤者填写文件。几名洛杉矶警察局的警员在附近维持交通和人群秩序。

据西尔弗曼称，尘埃似乎已经落定：聚集在现场的大批人群中，有些人拿出手机进行直播，而另一些人则站在那里消化震惊或寻找亲人。

罗纳尔多·博拉诺斯/洛杉矶时报/盖蒂图片社

但下午 6 点 57 分，人群中有人提醒西尔弗曼有直升机出现。

“当时我和现场的救援救护车……立即通过无线电向我们的调度中心报告了情况，我们两辆车都赶往了事故现场，”他说。

西尔弗曼跳上他的白色杜兰戈车，试图找到坠机地点，因为确切地点仍然未知。

晚上 7 点，NBC4 的主播 Colleen Williams 和 Jonathan Gonzalez 报道说，公交车事故现场附近冒出一股浓浓的黑烟，他们说：“我们不确定这是什么”，并补充道：“我们只能告诉你们，那里发生了一些事情。”

威廉姆斯和冈萨雷斯询问科瓦奇克关于公交车碰撞现场的烟雾情况，他回答说：“我认为这与事故无关。”

科瓦奇克突然看到人们跑来看发生了什么事，随后迅速驱车赶往烟雾源头。

美国国家运输安全委员会 (NTSB) 负责人法比安·萨拉扎尔在周三的新闻发布会上表示，飞机坠毁在不到一英里外的地面前不久，视频中可以听到发动机转速变化的声音以及向飞行员发出的警报。

在直升机的实时画面中，可以听到背景中有人惊呼什么，然后又听到另一个声音问道：“你不能拉起来吗？”

随后传来一声响亮的嗡嗡声，接着饲料剧烈晃动，切碎机似乎迅速下降。据西尔弗曼称，它在下降过程中撞上了一个集装箱。

几分钟后，西尔弗曼和救护车到达了一栋大型单层商业建筑后面的仓库停车场，发现洛杉矶警察局的警员们正在抓起灭火器，将一名男子从燃烧的残骸中拖走。

救护人员开始对受害者（后被确认为梅希亚）进行急救，但未能挽救他的生命。

来自 Edy Gutierrez Mejia/Facebook

与此同时，西尔弗曼在起火的直升机内以及周围停放的汽车内搜寻更多受害者，这些汽车因直升机的航空燃油泄漏而起火。

西尔弗曼说，火势似乎无法控制：警察和消防部门的灭火器“甚至无法扑灭从直升机上冒出的火焰”。

消防人员几分钟后赶到现场，立即展开灭火行动，并保护附近的车辆和建筑物。据西尔弗曼称，他们还进入建筑物内部进行搜查，以确保火势没有蔓延。消防部门表示，这场大火烧毁了四辆汽车和两个储物集装箱。

西尔弗曼说，67名消防员迅速扑灭了大部分火势，并阻止了航空燃油的进一步泄漏。随后，他们搜遍了直升机残骸，寻找机上遇难者。

据 NBC4 电视台画面显示，随着直升机坠毁消息的传播，巴士事故现场的媒体记者开始赶往直升机坠毁现场，但执法部门告知他们由于情况过于危险而撤离。

NBC4主播科瓦奇克在直播中说，他听到可能是新闻直升机飞过来，还看到另一家电视台的记者在哭泣。科瓦奇克随后询问同事们：“你们还好吗？不会是你们吧？”

关系紧密的南加州新闻界屏息以待，等待着哪个媒体将成为他们报道的对象。

NBC4的主播告诉观众，该电视台与直升机机组人员失去了联系。科瓦奇克说，其他所有电视台都告诉他，那不是他们的直升机。但当他意识到直升机里可能是他的同事时，科瓦奇克强忍着泪水。

科瓦奇克颤抖着问西尔弗曼，那架直升机属于谁。西尔弗曼告诉他，他不知道。

“新闻机构很快就报道了这件事……消息开始传开，原来是NBC的直升机，”西尔弗曼说。

飞行员和塔台管制员也开始推断，坠毁的直升机属于 NBC4 电视台。

据 CNN 获得的空中交通管制录音显示，一名飞行员说道：“TV 4 和我们这里不在同一个高度。我们认为坠毁的是 TV 4。”

晚上9点左右，威廉姆斯向NBC4的观众宣布了这一消息，她的声音明显带着悲伤。

威廉姆斯说：“我们现在可以确认，今晚大约两小时前在查斯特沃斯坠毁的直升机实际上是新闻直升机4号。”

团队失去了两名电台固定成员：莫雷诺（他之前一直在提供有关巴士事故的最新消息）和飞行员马尔西尼乌。

“我们需要几分钟时间来思考、消化和重新调整，”威廉姆斯告诉观众。电视台暂时切换到了其他节目。

西尔弗曼回忆说，现场很快就变成了“一个充满情感的场景”。

“这让我想起之前发生过的一起消防员在执行任务时重伤或殉职的事件……通常情况下，媒体都会向我们表示慰问，”西尔弗曼说。“但这次情况正好相反。”

当晚晚些时候，巴斯市长前往了坠机现场。

“今天对洛杉矶来说是极其悲惨的一天，”巴斯说。“今天我们失去了五位洛杉矶市民。”

第二天早上，NBC4 的主播们试图理解这场悲剧：“我们很多人醒来后仍然难以置信。这太令人难以接受了，”主播安娜贝尔·塞达诺说道。

周四晚上，巴斯和洛杉矶市议员约翰·李在守夜活动中悼念了五位洛杉矶居民。

“让我们铭记丹尼尔、盖奇、埃莉安娜、乔治和埃迪的一生，铭记他们所爱的人，铭记他们所影响的生命，”李说。

车上的乘客魏达计划在本周六和家人一起庆祝他的32岁生日。

“他们不会出来庆祝他的生日，而是会出来参加他的葬礼，”霍克曼周四说道。

另一位公交车乘客卡斯蒂略是一位慈爱的四个孩子的父亲，“他总能给每个他走进的房间带来欢笑和光明，”他的女儿乔安娜·卡斯蒂略在为家人设立的 GoFundMe 页面上写道。

在直升机上，38岁的双语记者莫雷诺热情地从空中讲述南加州的故事。她的同事马尔西尼乌拥有数十年的飞行经验，人们都记得他“和蔼可亲，笑容温暖”，李说。

George Marciniw/Instagram

29岁的梅希亚是一名行人，他从危地马拉的库伊拉帕来洛杉矶旅游。

查茨沃斯接连发生的两起灾难令整个洛杉矶社区震惊不已。西尔弗曼表示，一个社区在短短两小时内发生两起致命且备受瞩目的事故，这种情况极其罕见。

“单独来看，这些都是悲剧事件；而两件事叠加在一起，我认为这对社区成员来说更是一个巨大的打击，”西尔弗曼说。

在洛杉矶社区哀悼逝者之际，洛杉矶警察局正在调查公交车碰撞事故，而美国国家运输安全委员会和美国联邦航空管理局则在现场收集证据并就直升机坠毁事故进行证人访谈。

“通过收集这些事实数据，我们将能够更好地描绘出实际事故过程，”美国国家运输安全委员会的萨拉扎尔说。

据美国国家运输安全委员会 (NTSB) 称，预计将在 30 天内发布关于直升机坠毁事件的初步报告，随后将发布一份详细说明可能原因的最终报告，这可能需要长达 18 个月的时间。

视频显示，周五，因伤接受治疗的SUV司机里奥斯被担架抬进法庭。据CNN附属电视台KTLA报道，法官表示她因身体状况不适合出庭受审。法庭记录显示，她的保释金被定为410万美元，并定于周一出庭。

“人们要从这场灾难中恢复过来，还有很长的路要走，”西尔弗曼说。

CNN 的 Nic F. Anderson、Diego Mendoza、Amanda Jackson、Karina Tsui、Andy Rose、Danielle Sills、Taylor Galgano、Alea Motwane 和 Jessica Flynn 对本报道亦有贡献。