The drone of news helicopters flying overhead has long been a familiar soundtrack of life in Los Angeles, and the footage they gather of high-speed chases, wildfires, and celebrity sightings is a fixture of local television. For nearly 70 years, Angelenos have gotten their news from the “eye in the sky”—from scenes of OJ Simpson’s white Bronco getaway, the 1992 Los Angeles riots, and even Madonna’s wedding to Sean Penn. On Tuesday, one of those news helicopters crashed live while covering the collision of an SUV and a city bus, killing journalist Eliana Moreno, pilot George Marciniw and one person on the ground. The incident has sparked an outpouring of support for the families and reflection on the sometimes dangerous and uniquely Californian history of helicopter journalism. The world’s first “Telecopter” debuted in Los Angeles in 1958, after John Silva, chief engineer at KTLA-TV, retrofitted a helicopter into a flying news studio with ultralight aircraft. camera equipment that could transmit live images from the air. Silva, an electronics engineer who had worked as a radar operator during World War II, was uniquely suited to the task. Although KTLA had been the first commercially licensed television station in the city, a growing number of competitors in the 1950s made attracting viewers a growing concern. Highway troopers chase OJ Simpson’s white Ford Bronco, driven by his friend Al Cowlings, on westbound Highway 91 on June 17, 1994. Photo: ZUMA Press, Inc./Alamy In a 2002 interview with the Archive of American Television, Silva recalled his inspiration: “If we could build a mobile news unit on a helicopter, we could beat everything, get there first, avoid traffic, and get to every story before anyone else. in the competition.” Over the next decade, the Telecopter would capture scenes of the Bel Air Fire, the Baldwin Hills Dam Disaster, and the Watts Riots. Marika Gerrard of the Los Angeles News Service would take up the torch of helicopter reporting, capturing footage of the attack on Reginald Denny during the Los Angeles riots and the chase of OJ Simpson’s white Bronco. “The city was going through a really tumultuous time,” Matt Yoka, the producer of the documentary Whirlybird, told KCRW in a 2021 interview. “I think in a sense, the work that Zoey and Marika were doing was just trying to bring that into the homes of the people of Los Angeles who were watching the nightly news.” Spending their days in the sky, Tur and Gerrard were uniquely positioned to capture breaking news. In a 2024 interview with NBC News, Gerrard recalled how she and Tur were flying over the El Toro ‘Y’ junction when they heard on the scanner that Simpson’s Bronco had been spotted nearby: “So I opened the helicopter door and then pointed the camera down, and lo and behold, there was the white Bronco.” That practicality has made helicopters a crucial tool for news reporters in the vast cities of the western U.S. Rose, a helicopter reporter for ABC-13 in Houston, told the Associated Press. “As a reporter on board the plane, I could see the bigger picture, communicate with the newsroom, gather information and report live as events unfolded.” However, since their first use, news helicopters have faced real dangers, from mechanical failures to drone and bird strikes. In 1977, a KNBC helicopter ran out of fuel and crashed after covering a forest fire in Santa Barbara, killing cameraman George Spears and pilot Francis Gary Powers, the U-2 pilot who had survived the shootdown during a spy mission in the Soviet Union. Since 2000, there have been at least eight fatal accidents involving news helicopters in the United States, killing 16 people. Those accidents led to some reforms, such as all Phoenix news stations agreeing to share a helicopter after a 2007 crash, but some former helicopter journalists worry that newsrooms are turning to helicopters too quickly. “Viewers need information about mass riots, natural disasters and building explosions, especially when news crews on the ground can’t reach the sites, but do mundane street closures and beauty shots really serve the public?” Thanh Tan, a former helicopter reporter, wrote in an op-ed for the Seattle Times after a local helicopter crashed in 2014. “Newsrooms shouldn’t send crews to the skies just because they can or to compete for viewership.” After As shaky and emotional images taken directly from the helicopter appeared to show the crash, NBC Los Angeles confirmed the deaths of journalist Moreno, pilot Marciniw and pedestrian Edy Fernando Gutiérrez Mejía. “Tonight we will go on the air with heavy hearts because we have lost courage,” NBC Los Angeles anchor Colleen Williams said on air Tuesday. “Let’s take a couple of minutes to think about it, process it and regroup.” Working for Angel City Air, Moreno and Marciniw had provided air coverage for NBC4 and Telemundo 52 for years. ‘Working for Angel City Air, Moreno and Marciniw had provided air coverage for NBC4 and Telemundo 52 for years.’ Photograph: Ethan Swope/APMoreno, nicknamed “Eli in the Heli,” had begun working as a helicopter journalist in 2010, after graduating from Chapman University. Moreno, a bilingual reporter in her 30s, was engaged to be married and had recently completed a marathon. Her colleague, Jonathan Gonzalez, a weekend news anchor and reporter for NBC Los Angeles, told NBC that “she was very good at what she did.” “We are infinitely proud of her and feel incredibly blessed to have had the privilege of loving her,” they wrote. His longtime colleague, pilot Marciniw, was considering retiring after more than 30 years as a helicopter pilot when the accident occurred, said fellow pilot Esteban Jimenez. “I knew him since the ’90s. He was my instructor at one time, he was my eyes and my ears here in Los Angeles,” Jiménez said. Mejía, known by his nickname “Pichi,” was visiting Los Angeles and had arrived in the city just two days earlier. According to a cousin, he had planned to pick up a car and take it home to sell in Cuilapa, a town in southeastern Guatemala. His family is now working to repatriate his body. Just a few weeks before the accident, in his last Instagram post, Moreno had shared his enthusiasm for helicopter reporting. Captioning a photo of Whiteman Airport, Moreno wrote about covering the summer’s wildfires and how aerial imagery allowed him to show the path of a growing fire. “It just shows the power we have in being the eye in the sky,” he said.
