It is the nightmare scenario every TV news pilot trains to avoid: the story turns into the story. Just before 7 p.m. Tuesday, NewsChopper 4 — a Eurocopter AS350 B2 flown for NBCLA and Telemundo 52 — was circling the San Fernando Valley to cover a deadly crash involving a Los Angeles Metro bus when it suddenly went down, slamming into a parking lot between two commercial buildings in the 9100 block of North Mason Avenue in Chatsworth and erupting into flames.

Three people were killed: aerial reporter Eliana Moreno, known to viewers as "Eli in the Heli"; pilot George Marciniw, a 30-year aviation veteran nearing retirement; and 29-year-old Edy Gutierrez Mejia, who was on the ground when the aircraft came down. Two more people were hospitalized. The helicopter, operated by Angel City Air, was described by Los Angeles Fire Capt. Brandon Silverman as "pretty well destroyed," with the fire spreading to four parked vehicles and two storage containers, according to CBS Los Angeles.

The crash the helicopter had been sent to cover was itself deadly. Around 5 p.m., a gray 2004 Ford Expedition driven by 36-year-old Bailee Lynn Rios of Simi Valley allegedly ran a red light at Nordhoff Street and De Soto Avenue and T-boned a Metro bus. Gage Weida, 31, and Daniel Castillo, 46, were killed; six other people were injured. Rios was booked on suspicion of murder, and bail was set at $4 million, according to ABC7 Los Angeles.

"We Lost Five Angelenos Today"

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass addressed both crashes together Wednesday, calling it a singular civic tragedy rather than two separate incidents.

"This is a very, very tragic day in Los Angeles ... We lost five Angelenos today."

The National Transportation Safety Board and the FAA are now investigating what brought the helicopter down. NTSB investigator-in-charge Fabian Salazar said crews were still in the early stages of evidence gathering, telling reporters, "we are doing the field portion of the investigation ... gathering as much factual data as we can." Investigators say live footage broadcast from the helicopter's own camera in its final seconds — which reportedly captured changes in engine sound and cockpit advisory tones — could prove critical to the sound-spectrum analysis. A preliminary NTSB report is expected within about 30 days; a final determination of cause typically takes much longer.

Tributes to Moreno poured in from her own newsroom and rivals alike. A Telemundo statement called her "without a doubt the best airborne reporter in all of Los Angeles," and an NBC4 co-anchor remembered her on air as "just a light, such a spark plug." Moreno, a Chapman University graduate who had recently gotten engaged, spent years narrating the region's chases, brush fires and collisions from above — a job that put her, on Tuesday, directly above one of them for the last time.

Marciniw, a Burbank High School graduate with three decades of flight experience and a flight instructor's rating, was remembered by a fellow Angel City Air pilot who said simply, "I just spoke to him on Sunday ... I just cannot believe this."

Both the storage-yard crash site and the Nordhoff Street intersection remained cordoned off into Wednesday as NTSB investigators combed wreckage and LAPD detectives built their case against Rios. For a city whose skies are patrolled nightly by half a dozen competing news helicopters, the loss of one of their own, mid-broadcast, has reopened uncomfortable questions about how much risk aerial journalism still carries decades into the job.

A separately reported timeline lays out both Tuesday crashes side by side, tracing how the fatal bus collision and the helicopter sent to cover it unfolded within the same hour.