Newly surfaced surveillance footage from an industrial lot in Chatsworth has captured the harrowing final moments of NBC Los Angeles' NewsChopper4 as it went down Tuesday evening, killing all three people involved. The video shows the helicopter suddenly losing altitude and plunging between two buildings, kicking up a cloud of dust before black smoke and, soon after, flames engulfed the wreckage. Aboard the aircraft were aerial reporter Eliana Moreno and veteran pilot George Marciniw, both longtime employees of helicopter operator Angel City Air, who died alongside 29-year-old Edy Gutierrez Mejia, a bystander who was struck on the ground. The crew had been flying over the San Fernando Valley covering a separate, fatal collision between an SUV and a Metro bus just moments before their own helicopter went down.

Audio captured during NBC4's live broadcast that evening reportedly picked up signs of trouble with the aircraft moments before the crash, offering investigators a rare, real-time record of the emergency as it unfolded. The National Transportation Safety Board and Federal Aviation Administration have since opened an investigation into what caused the 22-year-old helicopter to go down, with early scrutiny focused on the possibility of a mechanical failure. Moreno, a Chapman University graduate who had been flying in news helicopters since 2010, and Marciniw, a Burbank High School graduate with more than 30 years and 14,000 hours of flight experience, had flown together since 2023 and were remembered by colleagues as inseparable partners in the air. As Southern California's close-knit aviation community continues to mourn, the newly released footage now stands as key evidence in determining exactly what went wrong in the seconds before NewsChopper4 hit the ground.