A helicopter operated by a local NBC News affiliate crashed and ignited in Los Angeles on Tuesday, resulting in the deaths of at least three individuals, according to officials. The fate of the journalists aboard the helicopter remains uncertain, as there has been no official confirmation of their status.
Colleen Williams, an anchor for NBC4 Los Angeles, reported live that the station’s helicopter went down shortly before 7 PM. The broadcast was interrupted just moments after the announcement. NBC anchors noted that the aircraft, identified as NewsChopper 4, lost communication with its crew prior to the crash, which occurred approximately 1.6 kilometers from the site of another incident. The exact number of people on board the helicopter has not been disclosed.
Williams stated, “We’ve been piecing it together here. We knew it was a news chopper. We knew we’d lost contact with our people out there, and we’ve just received the confirmation that, in fact, NewsChopper 4 went down just before 7 o’clock tonight in Chatsworth.”
The helicopter crashed near a storage facility in Chatsworth while the crew was covering a separate accident involving an SUV and a city bus, which resulted in at least two fatalities and left six others injured, as reported by the Los Angeles Fire Department. An investigation into the crash will be conducted by the National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration.
According to Captain Branden Silverman of the Los Angeles Fire Department, at least one of the fatalities from the helicopter crash occurred in a parking lot adjacent to a commercial property. It remains unclear whether the other two victims were inside the helicopter or on the ground.
One person was transported to the hospital, although their medical status is currently unknown. Silverman described the helicopter as “pretty well destroyed,” and rescue teams are working through the wreckage to ascertain how many individuals were aboard.
The crash also ignited at least four vehicles and two storage containers, but officials reported that the fire was quickly brought under control.
Over 50 firefighters were dispatched to respond to the incident, according to fire department reports. California Governor Gavin Newsom expressed gratitude to the emergency responders managing both the helicopter incident and the earlier crash, offering condolences to the victims and their families.
