A news helicopter has crashed and burst into flames in LA, close to the scene of a fatal bus accident, causing the death of at least three people, officials have revealed.
This happened after the helicopter crashed into a car park near a storage building, which caused a fire to break out, the fire department have confirmed. The aircraft caught fire, which led to at least four cars and two storage containers burning.
The victims were on board the NewsChopper 4 helicopter, and were since identified as Eliana Moreno, an aerial photojournalist, and pilot, George Marciniw.
A spokesperson for the LA Fire Department, Captain Branden Silverman, said that the other person who died was in the car park where the aircraft crashed. A fire department battalion chief, Rico A Gross, later revealed that two other people were also taken to hospital. Details regarding their welfare were not released at the time of writing.
Capt Silverman said the aircraft was "pretty well destroyed", stating that emergency teams were having to search through the rubble to discover how many victims were on board.
The department also revealed that more than 70 firefighters attended the scene of the helicopter crash.
Captain Silverman said that this incident took place just before 7am local time (3am UK time) on the 9100 of North Mason Avenue in Chatsworth. It happened after an earlier crash on Nordhoff Street, about 1.6 km away, at approximately 5.03am local time, involving an SUV and a bus where two people died and six others were injured.
NBC Los Angeles had confirmed that the helicopter was one of many aircraft covering the crash.
Speaking about this, anchor Colleen Williams said: "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".
While her voice at times was shaking with emotion, she added: "We're going to take a couple of minutes to think about that, to process and to regroup".
It was later confirmed that the National Transportation Safety Board would conduct an investigation into the cause of the incident.
Reacting to this tragedy, Los Angeles Mayor, Karen Bass said she was "absolutely devastated by the loss of life", adding that "my heart is with the families and loved ones of those we lost in the tragic bus collision and helicopter crash".
She also paid tribute to the emergency services who "responded so quickly", while calling on the public to avoid the area while officials remained at the scene.
The emergency services were also praised by Governor Gavin Newsom, who wrote on X that "our hearts are with the victims and families". (All quotes according to Sky News).
