An SUV Hit a Metro Bus. Two Hours Later, a News Helicopter Crashed. Five Lives Were Lost.

CHATSWORTH, Calif. — The cry came from somewhere in the crowd, pulling eyes away from the twisted wreckage of a Metro bus and toward a new column of black smoke rising a block east.

“The helicopter just crashed!” a voice shouted.

Los Angeles County Fire Capt. Brandon Silverman turned. His crews had just spent brutal minutes cutting passengers out of metal and glass after an SUV had slammed into the bus. Now, on Tuesday night, they were being pulled toward another disaster.

What unfolded in this suburban stretch of the San Fernando Valley would leave five people dead, stun a city and force one of the country’s largest local news markets to cover the loss of its own.

Authorities called the first crash preventable. A woman allegedly driving under the influence ran a red light and plowed into a Los Angeles Metro bus filled with passengers heading to or from work, prosecutors said. Two bus riders were killed. Less than two hours later, a news helicopter covering the wreckage fell from the sky, killing two journalists aboard and a tourist on the ground.

The dead included Gage Weida, 31, a bus passenger who was days away from his 32nd birthday; Daniel Castillo, 46, a father of four; Eliana Moreno, 38, an aerial photojournalist-reporter for KNBC-TV NBC4 and KVEA-TV; George Marciniw, the helicopter’s veteran pilot; and Edy Gutierrez Mejia, 29, a visitor from Cuilapa, Guatemala.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said the city had lost five Angelenos in a night that seemed to defy comprehension. “Simply going to work, coming from work to come back to your family, you expect to see them,” Bass said at a vigil Thursday. “And they never arrive.”

A bus, an SUV and a red light

The first emergency call came around 5 p.m. When Los Angeles Fire Department crews arrived, they found a Ford Expedition nearly fully lodged inside an LA Metro bus. Some people were trapped; another had been thrown into the intersection.

Bailee Lynn Rios, the SUV driver, had run a red light and nearly struck another car before hitting the eastbound bus, according to the Los Angeles Police Department. Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman said Rios was allegedly impaired by drugs, had narcotics inside the SUV and was driving well beyond the speed limit.

“She entered into opposing traffic because she was approaching a red light where cars were stopped, and she didn’t stop,” Hochman said. “At full force, she plunged into that metro bus.”

The bus driver, injured in the wreck, called the bus operating division for help, said Stephanie Wiggins, CEO of the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

Paramedics pronounced Weida and Castillo dead at the scene. Fire department search-and-rescue teams used hydraulic tools, including the Jaws of Life and reciprocating saws, to free a trapped passenger and Rios from the vehicles, Silverman said. Four other people suffered injuries that were not life-threatening.

Rios was charged with second-degree murder, driving under the influence and reckless driving, according to Hochman. She could face a maximum sentence of life in prison. CNN has reached out to her attorney for comment.

On Friday, video showed Rios being wheeled into court on a stretcher. A judge said she was not medically fit for arraignment, according to KTLA-TV. Her bail was set at $4.1 million, and she was scheduled to appear in court Monday, court records showed.

Hochman noted the ordinary rhythms interrupted by the crash. “People on that bus at about 5 p.m. were either going to work or maybe coming from work,” he said. “They might be going to get a bite to eat, to see family or friends. What they did not expect is what was about to happen.”

A news helicopter goes down

Shortly before 7 p.m., Silverman was still at the bus crash scene, waiting to give a live interview with NBC4 reporter Robert Kovacik. Most of the 56 fire department personnel who had responded had cleared out. A rescue ambulance crew was finishing paperwork. Police officers were managing traffic and crowds.

Then someone in the crowd alerted him: A helicopter had gone down.

Silverman and the ambulance crew radioed dispatch and headed toward the smoke. The exact location was still unclear. He drove his white Durango through the area, searching.

On air, NBC4 anchors Colleen Williams and Jonathan Gonzalez reported a thick black plume near the bus crash site. “We’re not sure what this is,” they told viewers. “All we can tell you is something has happened out there.”

Kovacik, at the bus collision scene, initially said he did not think the smoke was related. Then he saw people running. He drove toward the source.

The helicopter belonged to NBC4 and KVEA-TV and had been providing aerial coverage of the bus crash. It crashed less than a mile away, hitting a shipping container as it descended, Silverman said.

Fabian Salazar, the National Transportation Safety Board investigator in charge, said video recorded moments before impact captured the engine changing speed and alerts to the pilot. In the live feed, a person is heard exclaiming in the background before another voice asks, “You can’t pull up?” A loud buzzing noise follows, the feed shakes intensely, and the chopper appears to descend rapidly.

Within minutes, Silverman and the ambulance arrived at a storage facility parking lot behind a one-story commercial building. LAPD officers were grabbing fire extinguishers and dragging a man away from the burning wreckage. The ambulance crew began first aid on the victim, later identified as Mejia, but could not save him.

Silverman searched for more victims inside the helicopter, which had burst into flames, and in nearby parked cars that were igniting as jet fuel leaked. The fire was overwhelming. Extinguishers from police and fire crews “couldn’t even put a dent in the flames that were coming from the helicopter,” he said.

When fire crews arrived minutes later, they attacked the fire and protected nearby cars and the building. They searched inside to make sure the fire had not spread. Four cars and two storage containers were damaged, the fire department said. A group of 67 firefighters knocked down most of the blaze and stopped the jet fuel from leaking further, Silverman said. Then they searched the wreckage for victims.

A newsroom’s worst fear

As word of the helicopter crash spread, media crews from the bus crash scene rushed toward the second site. Law enforcement told them to evacuate because the situation was too dangerous, NBC4 footage showed.

Kovacik heard it might have been a news chopper. He saw a reporter from another station in tears. On air, he was heard checking in with colleagues: “Are you OK? It’s not you guys, is it?”

The close-knit Southern California news community waited to learn which outlet would become the story. NBC4 anchors told viewers the station had lost contact with its helicopter crew. Other stations told Kovacik it was not their chopper. As he realized it may have been his colleagues, Kovacik could be heard holding back tears.

He asked Silverman who the helicopter belonged to. Silverman said he did not have that information. Soon, word began to travel through the news organizations. It was NBC’s.

Pilots and tower controllers also began deducing the downed helicopter belonged to NBC4. “TV 4 is not up here with us. We believe it’s TV 4 that went down,” one pilot said, according to air traffic control audio obtained by CNN.

Around 9 p.m., Williams delivered the confirmation to viewers, her voice audibly distressed. “We can now confirm that the chopper that went down in Chatsworth tonight, about two hours ago, was in fact News Chopper 4,” she said.

The station had lost two fixtures: Moreno, who had been providing updates on the bus crash earlier that evening, and Marciniw, a veteran pilot. Williams told viewers the station would take a couple of minutes to process and regroup. NBC4 temporarily switched to other programming.

On the ground, the scene became emotional, Silverman said. “It reminded me of an incident where a firefighter is severely injured or killed in the line of duty, and normally the members of the media are giving us their condolences,” he said. “In this case, it was the other way around.”

Five lives, and a city left shaken

Later that night, Bass visited the crash site. “This is a very, very, very tragic day in Los Angeles,” she said. “We lost five Angelenos today.”

The next morning, NBC4 anchors tried to make sense of the tragedy. “So many of us are still waking up in disbelief. It’s hard to process this,” anchor Annabelle Sedano said.

On Thursday night, Bass and Los Angeles City Councilmember John Lee honored the five victims at a vigil. “May we remember Daniel, Gage, Eliana, George and Edy for how they lived, for the people they loved and for the lives they touched,” Lee said.

Weida, a bus passenger, had planned to celebrate his 32nd birthday with family on Saturday. “Instead, they’re not going to be coming out for his birthday, they’ll be coming out for his funeral,” Hochman said Thursday.

Castillo, another bus passenger, was a devoted father of four “who had a way of bringing laughter and light into every room he walked into,” his daughter Johaunna Castillo wrote on a GoFundMe page for the family.

Moreno, an engaged bilingual journalist, was passionate about telling Southern California’s stories from the sky. Marciniw, a soon-to-retire veteran pilot, had decades of experience and was remembered for “his kindness and warm smile,” Lee said. Mejia, 29, had recently arrived in Los Angeles from Guatemala.

The back-to-back disasters left Chatsworth and the wider city shaken. It is extraordinarily rare for a neighborhood to experience two fatal, high-profile accidents within two hours, Silverman said. “Individually they were tragic events, and combined, I think it’s even more of a shock to community members,” he said.

As Los Angeles mourns, the LAPD is investigating the bus collision, while the NTSB and the Federal Aviation Administration are examining the helicopter crash, gathering evidence and interviewing witnesses. “In gathering that factual data, we’ll be able to paint a better picture of the actual accident sequence,” Salazar said.

A preliminary report on the chopper crash is expected within 30 days, followed by a final report detailing probable cause, which can take up to 18 months, according to the NTSB.

Rios, meanwhile, faces a long legal fight. Her next court appearance is scheduled for Monday. “It’ll be a long road ahead for people to recover from this,” Silverman said.

CNN’s Nic F. Anderson, Diego Mendoza, Amanda Jackson, Karina Tsui, Andy Rose, Danielle Sills, Taylor Galgano, Alea Motwane and Jessica Flynn contributed to this report.