An NBC news helicopter crashed in Los Angeles County late Tuesday, the station said. At least three people were killed, according to the Los Angeles Fire Department.
One of those killed was a pedestrian in a parking lot, according to Branden Silverman, a spokesman for the fire department, who spoke to reporters near the crash site in Chatsworth, a Los Angeles suburb. The number of people in the helicopter and their conditions were not clear, he said.
The crash became an emotional moment on NBC4 Los Angeles as the station reported on the loss of its own helicopter. “We are going to take a couple of minutes to think about that, process it,” anchor Colleen Williams said. Moments later, the station abruptly ended its news coverage and switched to other programming.
The fire department said in an alert shortly after that the death toll had increased to three people, and that the resulting fire damaged four vehicles and two shipping containers. It did not provide information about the other two people who were killed.
“The helicopter itself is pretty well destroyed, so we are going to have to go through the rubble and see how many victims there were on board as well as identify the helicopter,” Mr. Silverman said.
Two people were also taken to hospitals and their conditions were unknown, Rico Gross, a spokesman for the Los Angeles Fire Department, said at a later news conference.
The helicopter crashed between two commercial buildings just before 7 p.m., according to the fire department.
The National Transportation Safety Board will lead the investigation into the crash, the Los Angeles Police Department said on social media. The NTSB said in email said its investigator would arrive on scene on Wednesday morning.
About two hours earlier, a passenger vehicle had collided with a Los Angeles Metro bus a short distance away, killing two people and injuring several others, according to the fire department.
Mr. Silverman had been speaking with reporters at the scene of that crash when he saw a column of smoke from the helicopter crash nearby. He said he immediately left for the second scene.
Asked whether the helicopter had been connected to the earlier crash, Mr. Silver said he did not know.
In a statement, Mayor Karen Bass said she was “absolutely devastated” by the loss of life in Chatsworth from both the bus collision and the helicopter crash.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
Shawn Hubler contributed reporting from Los Angeles.
