💔 HE WAS SENT TO COVER A HELICOPTER CRASH. THEN HE LEARNED IT WAS HIS OWN TEAM.

For years, NBC anchor Robert Kovacik had reported from some of Los Angeles’ biggest breaking-news scenes.

He had seen fires.

Crashes.

Deaths.

Disasters.

He had learned how to stay calm when everything around him was falling apart.

But on Tuesday night, September 15, something happened that no journalist is ever prepared for.

Kovacik was sent to the scene of a helicopter crash in Chatsworth.

At first, he didn’t know who was inside.

Then came the questions.

Was it a news helicopter?

Which station?

Who was flying?

Who was aboard?

And then came the answer that changed everything.

It was NewsChopper4.

It was his team.

His colleagues.

The people he had worked beside for years.

And suddenly, the reporter standing at the scene was no longer simply covering a tragedy.

He was standing in the middle of one.

💔 THE MOMENT HE BROKE DOWN

Video from the scene showed Kovacik sitting inside a police vehicle, visibly overwhelmed as he wiped tears from his face.

He had spent years delivering difficult news to viewers.

Now he was struggling to process news about people he knew personally.

PEOPLE reported that Kovacik broke down after learning that NBC4 reporter Eliana Moreno and veteran pilot George Marciniw had been killed.

The emotion was impossible to hide.

And perhaps it shouldn’t have been.

Because behind the television screen was not simply an anchor.

It was a colleague grieving for colleagues.

“WE’VE LOST CONTACT”

The tragedy unfolded while NBC’s helicopter was covering another deadly story.

A Metro bus collision had already drawn news crews to Chatsworth.

NewsChopper4 was in the air providing aerial coverage.

Then something happened.

The newsroom could no longer reach the crew.

Confusion spread.

Kovacik was sent toward the scene.

At first, even the journalists didn’t know exactly what had happened.

Then the devastating confirmation came:

The helicopter that had crashed was NewsChopper4.

The people they had been trying to contact were the people they had lost.

🕊️ ELiana MORENO

Among them was 38-year-old Eliana Moreno.

To viewers, she was known as an aerial reporter — “Eli in the heli.”

To her colleagues, she was much more.

She was a journalist who loved breaking news.

A bilingual reporter who worked in both English and Spanish.

A lifelong Southern Californian who had built the career she dreamed about.

And a woman who had recently become engaged.

Her colleague Lynette Romero remembered Moreno as “such a light” with the “biggest heart.”

That is the person her coworkers were thinking about as they stood at the crash scene.

Not simply a reporter’s name on a breaking-news graphic.

A friend.

A teammate.

Someone they expected to see again.

🕊️ GEORGE MARCINIW

Pilot George Marciniw was also killed.

He had decades of aviation experience and had worked closely with Moreno.

The two had reportedly flown hundreds of hours together.

They were a team in the sky.

On Tuesday night, that team never came home.

NBC4 and Telemundo 52 were using the helicopter for aerial news coverage when it crashed in Chatsworth.

A third person on the ground was also killed, while others were injured.

THE SECOND TRAGEDY OF THE NIGHT

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