Newly released security footage has revealed the harrowing final seconds before an NBC4 news helicopter plunged from the sky into a Chatsworth parking lot, claiming three lives.
The clip, obtained by NBCLA from a nearby building, shows the Airbus helicopter hovering over an intersection Tuesday night before it abruptly begins dropping toward the ground. A building blocks the camera’s view of the aircraft’s final moments, but flames and thick smoke erupt from behind the structure seconds after impact.
Smoke emerges roughly 20 seconds after impact, while the first flames appear about 50 seconds after the crash, according to the footage. Emergency crews arrive moments later as the parking lot of a self-storage business fills with thick black smoke.
Reporter Eliana Moreno, 38, and pilot George Marciniw died in the crash, along with 29-year-old Edy Gutierrez Mejia, who was on the ground. The helicopter had been covering a deadly crash involving an SUV and a Metro bus when it went down.
The timing of the video’s release coincides with an active federal investigation into whether the helicopter suffered an engine or mechanical failure. The footage also appears to show that the helicopter did not simply run out of fuel, adding a critical data point to the probe.
The National Transportation Safety Board has urged anyone with additional video from the crash scene to come forward as investigators work to piece together the aircraft’s final moments. The agency is collecting all available visual evidence to reconstruct what caused the sudden loss of altitude.
The helicopter was part of the NBC4 Los Angeles news fleet, which provides aerial coverage of breaking incidents across the region. Tuesday night’s assignment had taken the crew to the scene of the earlier fatal collision between an SUV and a Metro bus in the San Fernando Valley community.
The parking lot where the helicopter came to rest sits at a self-storage facility, a typically quiet commercial area that became the site of the second fatal incident in a matter of hours. The proximity of the two crashes within the same neighborhood compounded the evening’s devastation.
Gutierrez Mejia, 29, had been on the ground near the storage facility when the aircraft struck, making him the third victim of a tragedy that spanned from air to street level. His presence at the site placed him in the path of an uncontrolled descent that gave no warning to those below.
The partial view provided by the security footage leaves critical gaps in the visual record, with the building obstruction hiding the helicopter’s final orientation and any last-moment maneuvers the pilot may have attempted. What the camera does capture is the suddenness of the drop from hover to impact.
The gap between impact and the first visible smoke—roughly 20 seconds—followed by the delayed appearance of flames nearly a minute later, offers investigators potential clues about fuel systems and impact dynamics. These timestamps may help determine whether the aircraft retained structural integrity momentarily or whether fuel dispersal patterns explain the delayed combustion.
Federal investigators are examining the possibility of engine or mechanical failure as the primary cause of the sudden altitude loss. The fuel question has gained particular attention given the footage’s apparent contradiction of a simple fuel-exhaustion scenario.
The NTSB’s public appeal for additional video reflects the agency’s effort to build a comprehensive visual timeline from multiple angles. The single security camera’s blocked view underscores how much of the incident remains unseen by official investigators.
The crash killed two people doing their jobs and one person simply in the wrong place, uniting a veteran journalist, an experienced pilot, and a bystander in a single catastrophic moment captured only in fragments.
The NTSB investigation is expected to continue as additional witnesses and footage are gathered.