A motorist was arrested on murder charges following a deadly crash involving an SUV and a city bus in Los Angeles, which preceded a second tragedy when a live-broadcasting news helicopter crashed in the Chatsworth neighborhood on Tuesday, killing a reporter, a pilot, and a pedestrian on the ground.
The whir of news helicopters overhead has defined the skies of Los Angeles for nearly 70 years, providing live aerial footage of everything from historic riots to high-speed chases. That long aviation history took a devastating turn when an Angel City Air helicopter operating for NBC4 and Telemundo 52 went down live on air while covering the aftermath of a violent street collision.
Bailee Lynn Rios Arrested in Bus Collision That Preceded Chopper Crash
Authorities arrested 36-year-old Bailee Lynn Rios of Simi Valley on murder charges after investigators determined she drove her 2004 Ford Expedition the wrong way down a busy avenue, ran a red light, struck a vehicle, and then slammed directly into a city bus on Tuesday.
The violent impact injured six people and killed two bus passengers: 46-year-old Daniel Castillo and 31-year-old Gage Weida. Police reported that one passenger was fully ejected from the bus and another was partially ejected during the collision. Held at a Los Angeles jail with bail set at $4 million, Rios faces an impending review by the district attorney’s office to finalize formal charges.
The fact that my daughter was involved and was the cause of it is just extremely disturbing,
Cindy Rios told the Associated Press in a phone interview, expressing deep sorrow for the victims and noting she had not spoken to her daughter since the arrest.
Eliana Moreno and George Marciniw Identified as Victims of the Angel City Air Chopper Crash
About two hours after the ground collision, the Eurocopter AS350 operated by Angel City Air crashed in the Chatsworth neighborhood of the San Fernando Valley near a large storage facility, igniting a fire that burned at least four cars and two storage containers according to federal investigators.
The crash claimed the lives of reporter Eliana Moreno, pilot George Marciniw, and 29-year-old Edy Fernando Gutiérrez Mejía, a pedestrian from Guatemala who died in a parking lot. Moreno, a Chapman University broadcast journalism graduate who joined Angel City Air in 2010, had been flying regularly with Marciniw since 2023. Marciniw, a native of Southern California and a Burbank High School graduate, was remembered by former associates.
National Transportation Safety Board investigator Fabian Salazar pointed to the final moments captured on the broadcast as crucial evidence. An alarm sounding inside the cockpit preceded the aircraft losing altitude as a woman’s voice was heard asking You can’t pull up?
before the transmission cut out as the chopper neared the ground.
Seven Decades of Los Angeles News Aviation and Its Hidden Dangers
Los Angeles pioneered the medium in 1958 when KTLA-TV engineer John Silva retrofitted a helicopter into the world’s first Telecopter
to bypass freeway gridlock and broadcast live footage from above according to archival interviews.
Over subsequent decades, airborne reporters captured defining moments of local and national history, from the 1992 Los Angeles riots and O.J. Simpson’s white Ford Bronco chase to major brushfires and disasters.
At least eight fatal crashes involving news helicopters have occurred across the United States since 2000, claiming 16 lives. While some regions adopted reforms—such as Phoenix news stations agreeing to share a single aircraft following a 2007 crash—critics continue to question whether routine traffic updates and minor street closures justify the ongoing risks posed to flight crews and pedestrians as former helicopter reporter Thanh Tan noted in past commentary.
Newsrooms and Families Grapple With a Heavy Loss
Colleagues at NBC4 and Telemundo 52 spent Wednesday broadcasting through tears as they honored Moreno and Marciniw as the team in the sky
while hazardous materials crews worked to clear jet fuel from the Chatsworth crash site.
We are coming on the air with heavy hearts tonight because we lost valued friends and colleagues,
anchor Colleen Williams told viewers on air while pausing the broadcast to process the tragedy.
Federal investigators from the NTSB continue to examine both the initial bus collision and the mechanical data recovered from the helicopter’s final flight, leaving families and newsrooms waiting for definitive answers on what caused the twin tragedies.
Keep reading