Reporter Witnesses Helicopter Crash With Own Crew Aboard in Los Angeles
An NBC Los Angeles reporter covering a bus accident was stunned to see a news helicopter crash nearby, later learning his colleagues were on board.
An NBC 4 reporter experienced a harrowing on-air moment when he witnessed a helicopter crash on a Los Angeles street, unaware that his own crew was inside the aircraft. Robert Kovacik was reporting on a bus crash in Chatsworth on Tuesday night when the helicopter went down in a parking lot.
Kovacik, along with his crew, rushed toward the burning wreckage. Firefighters urged them to stay clear of the area due to the intense flames. "Trust me, I am putting my own life in my own hands," Kovacik pleaded with first responders.
His urgency intensified when he realized it was an NBC helicopter. "Dude, that's my crew in there, that is my own crew," he told a police officer. The officer responded, "We are gonna get them evacuated, this isn't safe."
Kovacik was live on air covering the bus crash when his NBC 4 studio colleagues interrupted his report, instructing him to move toward the smoke. "Robert, we need you to move," an anchor said. "We're going to need you to move towards that smoke and get closer to that scene immediately."
The broadcast then cut back to the studio as Kovacik made his way to the crash site. Another anchor stated, "We understand there may be an aircraft down. We don't have any more specific information than that. Robert is driving in the direction. We did see a huge plume of black smoke in the area."
When Kovacik's crew resumed their feed, viewers saw the reporter pleading with law enforcement to access the scene. He described a "fire that is spreading." He then spoke to a Fox 11 reporter, Ed Laskos, who confirmed, "It's a chopper, a media chopper."
Kovacik repeated in disbelief, "It's a chopper?" Laskos confirmed, "Yes, it's a media chopper." Kovacik then asked, "Are you okay? It's not you guys, is it?" as flames erupted behind them.
A female reporter ran past the cameras in tears. Kovacik turned back to his camera, stating, "We don't know where the chopper is from, we don't know if it even is a chopper, if it's a news chopper, we are just looking right now."
Eliana Moreno, 38, and pilot George Marciniw, 70, were identified as the two individuals on board the NBC helicopter when it crashed near the site of a fatal bus collision in Los Angeles just before 7 p.m. Tuesday. The NewsChopper4 was flying over the area between two warehouses at the intersection of Nordhoff Street and DeSoto Avenue, close to where an SUV had collided with a bus earlier that evening, when it suddenly lost altitude and plunged to the ground.
In the bus crash, two people were killed and six others were injured, some critically. The helicopter appeared to have crashed adjacent to two shipping containers and several parked vehicles, igniting a large blaze that threatened nearby vehicles.
Moreno was an experienced aerial reporter for NBC4 Los Angeles and Telemundo, having flown in news choppers since 2010 to cover pursuits, wildfires, traffic, and major local events. She graduated from Chapman University in 2010 with degrees in broadcast journalism and political science and had worked at KCAL 9 and KCBS 2 before joining NBC and flying for NewsChopper4 around 2018 or 2019. Marciniw was a seasoned pilot with over 14,000 logged flight hours.
