LOS ANGELES (TNND) \u2014 A Los Angeles driver has been charged with murder after prosecutors said she drove the wrong way while impaired by drugs, ran a red light and crashed into a city bus, killing two passengers, according to prosecutors. <\/p>\n
The collision was being covered by a TV news helicopter when it later crashed<\/a>, killing three people: reporter Eliana Moreno<\/a>, pilot George Marciniw and pedestrian Edy Gutierrez Mejia. The fiery crash also burned at least four cars and two storage containers.<\/p>\n Bailee Lynn Rios, 36, was arrested Monday night and remained in a Los Angeles jail on $4 million bail, according to police. Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman said Rios was speeding and impaired when she drove her 2004 Ford Expedition the wrong way down a busy avenue, struck another vehicle and then plowed into the bus.<\/p>\n Rios faces two counts of second-degree murder in the deaths of bus passengers Daniel Castillo, 46, and Gage Weida, 31.<\/p>\n Surveillance footage obtained by NBC4 Los Angeles shows the helicopter descending at a slight angle before disappearing behind trees and nearby structures. Seconds later, black smoke and flames rise from the crash site.<\/p>\n Investigators have not determined what caused the helicopter to go down, but they said the crew’s final live video could prove critical.<\/p>\n NTSB investigator Fabian Salazar said Wednesday the recording is \u201cprobably the most important evidence that we have discovered so far.\u201d The agency plans to send a high-quality copy to its recorder laboratory for sound-spectrum analysis after investigators heard what Salazar described as sounds consistent with the engine changing speed, as well as warning tones likely directed at the pilots.<\/p>\n In the final seconds, an alarm sounds in the cockpit as the helicopter pulls away from the bus collision and begins losing altitude. A woman can be heard saying, \u201cUh oh,\u201d then asking, \u201cYou can\u2019t pull up?\u201d before the feed cuts out near the ground.<\/p>\n Aviation safety expert Jeff Guzzetti told the Associated Press the warning tone could point to a loss of engine power and declining main-rotor speed. He said the pilot appeared to be attempting an autorotation, an emergency maneuver that uses airflow to keep the rotor turning.<\/p>\n The NTSB is separately investigating the bus collision.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LOS ANGELES (TNND) \u2014 A Los Angeles driver has been charged with murder after prosecutors said she drove…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":468088,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[48,52,51,47,50,49],"class_list":["post-468087","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468087","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=468087"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468087\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/468088"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=468087"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=468087"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=468087"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}