NBC News Los Angeles has confirmed that one of its news helicopters has crashed in Chatsworth and killed three people.
KNBC Channel 4 news anchor Colleen Williams confirmed the news via a live broadcast on Tuesday, September 15. “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, News Chopper 4 went down just before 7 o’clock tonight in Chatsworth,” Williams, 71, told viewers.
A subsequent report published by NBC News late on Tuesday night stated that the chopper had crashed in the suburban neighborhood “while it was covering a bus collision Tuesday evening, killing three people.”
Per the report, the helicopter crashed either “in a parking lot at or near a self-storage facility in the community,” which is located in L.A.’s Fernando Valley. The Los Angeles Fire Department attended the scene and no fatality identities were confirmed at the time of publication.
“We’re going to take a couple of minutes to think about that, to process, and to regroup,” Williams, a veteran news anchor, said on-air.
In addition to the three fatalities, another person “was taken to a hospital in unknown condition,” per information received from the fire department. The report also noted that “at least one” of the deceased people “appeared to be a pedestrian on the ground” when the crash occurred.
NBC Los Angeles shared developments on the news via its Instagram account on Tuesday night, with one eyewitness recalling that she saw “sudden smoke” coming from the crash.
Another interviewed witness told the outlet, “I happened to look over my shoulder and I saw a certain news helicopter, oddly, just coming straight down. I looked at it and I go, ‘That’s weird.’ No helicopter comes down like that, and then two seconds later the smoke. It came just straight down.”
The first eyewitness, who was being interviewed out the front of a storage facility, then jumped in, recalling that she heard “everybody started screaming.”
According to NBC News’ published report, the fire department confirmed that the National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration “will be involved” in investigations.
The bus crash that the helicopter had been covering reportedly left two separate people dead and others injured after “a Los Angeles Metro bus and a passenger vehicle” collided.
News Chopper 4 was one of several helicopters hovering above the scene as “firefighters worked to free the trapped people and assess the bus passengers” below.
