Dashcam video from a Los Angeles driver captured an NBC and Telemundo news helicopter rapidly descending toward the ground moments before a fiery crash that killed three people.
The video, captured by driver Year Valencia, shows the helicopter dropping from the sky Tuesday while its crew was covering a separate deadly collision involving an SUV and a city bus.
“I downloaded the video of my dashcam. Its a little dot on the video. Its a crisp video, and it just goes down,” Valencia told KTLA, which first obtained the footage. “God, its so close, it could have happened to anyone. My parents walk down the street.”
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The helicopter crashed in the Chatsworth neighborhood of the San Fernando Valley, killing NBC4 and Telemundo 52 reporter Eliana Moreno, pilot George Marciniw and 29-year-old Edy Gutierrez Mejia, who was on the ground.
The aircraft went down near a storage facility and caught fire, with the blaze spreading to at least four vehicles and two storage containers.
The crash came roughly two hours after the SUV slammed into the city bus in a separate collision that killed two people and injured six others, according to authorities. Police said the SUV had been traveling the wrong way, ran a red light and struck another vehicle before hitting the bus.
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Police arrested the SUV’s driver, 36-year-old Bailee Lynn Rios, on murder charges Tuesday night. The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office was reviewing the case to determine what charges, if any, would be filed in court.
The cause of the helicopter crash remained under investigation Wednesday. Video broadcast from the helicopter before it went down captured an alarm sounding inside the aircraft as it began losing altitude.
National Transportation Safety Board investigator Fabian Salazar said Wednesday that the helicopter’s final video could provide investigators with critical evidence as they work to determine what caused the crash. The sounds captured on the recording appeared consistent with changes in engine speed and likely cockpit advisory tones, he said.
The helicopter, a Eurocopter AS350 operated by Angel City Air, was used by NBC4 and Telemundo 52 for aerial news coverage. The NTSB is investigating the helicopter crash as well as the earlier bus collision.
