On an ordinary Tuesday evening in Chatsworth, a neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley, an SUV hit a city bus full of people heading home. Two passengers died. About two hours later, a news helicopter that had been covering the crash went down less than a mile away and killed three more people. Two crashes and five deaths in a single evening left Los Angeles in shock. Here is what we know about what happened, who was lost, and what investigators are still trying to figure out.
Murder Charge for SUV Driver Accused of Driving on Drugs Into Crowded LA Bus, Killing Two Riders
It was around 5 p.m. at the corner of Nordhoff Street and De Soto Avenue when the first crash happened. According to the Los Angeles Police Department, 36-year-old Bailee Lynn Rios of Simi Valley was driving her SUV southbound in the northbound lanes of De Soto Avenue. Police say she ran a red light and nearly hit another car that was crossing the intersection. Then she hit the Metro bus.
The force of the impact was severe. The SUV ended up wedged into the left side of the bus, and when rescuers pulled it free, it left a huge hole behind. Police said one passenger was thrown completely out of the bus and another was partly thrown out. Two adults on the bus died. Six other people were taken to the hospital, and one of them had severe injuries.
Prosecutors later said Rios was under the influence of drugs at the time. She was first arrested on suspicion of murder and then formally charged with murder. Her bail was set at $4 million, and jail records showed she was still in custody the day after the crash. Officials described the tragedy as preventable, a word that carries a lot of weight when you think about who was on that bus. These are still charges, and the case has a long way to go in court.
Rios's mother spoke to The Associated Press and said she was shocked and saddened. She had not talked to her daughter since the arrest and had not been contacted by law enforcement. She also said she was sorry for the other families, and she pointed out that her daughter is alive while other people lost their lives. It is a difficult thing to hear, and it shows that the damage from one decision behind the wheel reaches well beyond the people in the crash itself.
NTSB: Engine Sound Changed and Alarm Sounded Seconds Before News Helicopter Fell Over Chatsworth
Just before 7 p.m., while crews were still working at the bus scene, the news helicopter went down. It was operated by a company called Angel City Air and was providing aerial coverage for NBC4 and Telemundo 52. It came down at a storage facility in the 9100 block of North Mason Avenue, landing on top of shipping containers and several parked vehicles. A large fire started right away.
Surveillance footage obtained by NBC4 shows the helicopter dropping from the sky at a slight angle and disappearing behind some trees. A moment later, a thick column of black smoke and flames rises from the spot.
The National Transportation Safety Board is leading the investigation. At a news conference on Wednesday, NTSB investigator-in-charge Fabian Salazar said that video from the helicopter's live broadcast gives some early clues. Just before the crash, you can hear the engine changing speed, and you can hear alerts going off for the pilot. In the last seconds of the feed, an alarm keeps sounding inside the cockpit as the aircraft loses altitude.
It is important to be careful here. Sounds on a video are a starting point, not an explanation. Nobody has said what caused the crash, and the NTSB has not reached any conclusion. Investigations like this usually take a long time, and final reports often arrive a year or more after the accident. In the meantime, the agency has asked anyone who saw the crash or has footage of it to email
"The Back Was His Favorite Seat": Remembering the Five Lives Lost in Chatsworth's Double Tragedy
It is easy to get lost in the details of investigations and charges, so it is worth slowing down to remember the people involved. The two bus passengers were Gage Weida, 31, and Daniel Castillo, 46. Castillo's daughter, Johaunna, told reporters that her father was on his way home from his job at a car parts warehouse. He took that same bus every day, and she said the back was his favorite seat. It is a small, ordinary detail, and it says a lot about who he was. He was a man with a routine, riding home after work like thousands of other people do every evening.
On the helicopter were two people who worked for Angel City Air. Eliana Moreno was an aerial photojournalist, and many viewers of NBC4 and its Spanish-language sister station, Telemundo 52, knew her work. She was born in Orange County and earned a degree in broadcast journalism and political science from Chapman University in 2010, the same year she joined Angel City Air. Over the years she reported for several news outlets, and she began flying with pilot George Marciniw in 2023. The two of them had been working together for a few years when the crash happened.
The third person to die from the helicopter crash was not on the aircraft at all. Edy Gutierrez Mejia was 29 years old and from Guatemala, and the Guatemalan consulate confirmed this. He was in the parking lot when the helicopter came down, and the fire department said he appeared to be a pedestrian. CNN described him as a young tourist. He had nothing to do with the bus crash or the news coverage. He was simply in the wrong place at the wrong moment, far from home.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said the city had lost five Angelenos that day and offered her condolences to the families and friends of everyone who died. California Governor Gavin Newsom also sent his sympathy to the victims, their families, and the whole NBC4 team. On Thursday evening, hundreds of people gathered in Chatsworth for a candlelit vigil. They brought photos of the people they loved and prayed together for both sets of victims.
Rescuers Pulled Passengers From Wreckage, Then Ran Toward a Second Disaster One Block Away
For the first responders, the evening was a nightmare that kept getting worse. Los Angeles County Fire Captain Branden Silverman and his team had spent a long stretch at the bus scene. A Los Angeles Urban Search and Rescue team worked to get out several people who were trapped inside the bus, including one person who was reportedly underneath the vehicle. It was slow, exhausting work, with twisted metal and broken glass everywhere.
They had just finished getting people out when someone in the crowd shouted that a helicopter had crashed. Silverman turned around and saw a big plume of black smoke rising from a parking lot one block east. A loud explosion followed. In a matter of seconds, the same firefighters, police officers, and news crews who had been focused on the bus had to switch their attention to a second deadly emergency.
That included the crews from NBC4, who had been in the neighborhood to report on the bus crash. Suddenly, one of their own aircraft had gone down, and the story they were covering became a story about their own colleagues. Early Wednesday morning, NBC4 reporter Lauren Coronado stood near the crash site and told viewers that many people at the station were still trying to make sense of what had happened and the terrible loss.