An NBC 4 Los Angeles reporter, Robert Kovacik, was covering a fatal bus crash in the Chatsworth neighbourhood on Tuesday night when a news helicopter crashed nearby, unaware at the time that his own colleagues were aboard the aircraft. Live footage captured Kovacik rushing towards the burning wreckage with his crew, pleading with police and firefighters to let him get closer, before a fellow reporter informed him it was a "media chopper" that had gone down, prompting him to ask in evident panic whether it was his own team. The incident highlights the dangers faced by broadcast crews covering breaking news and the harrowing, unscripted nature of live television when tragedy strikes those reporting on it.

The helicopter, NewsChopper4, was flying between two warehouses near the intersection of Nordhoff Street and DeSoto Avenue, close to the scene of an earlier collision between an SUV and a bus, when it suddenly lost altitude and crashed just before 7pm. The crash killed both people on board, reporter Eliana Moreno, 38, and pilot George Marciniw, 70, along with one person on the ground, while the earlier bus collision had already left two dead and six injured.