Disturbing footage recorded aboard an NBC news helicopter shortly before it crashed has revealed the final words of photojournalist Eliana Moreno, who died in the incident alongside pilot George Marciniw and a pedestrian on the ground.

What happened

NewsChopper4 had been hovering above the scene of a fatal bus crash in the Chatsworth area of San Fernando Valley at around 7pm on Tuesday, 15 September, when something appeared to go wrong. Footage from onboard shows the camera beginning to shake violently before the aircraft rapidly lost altitude.

Her final words

In the moments before impact, Moreno can be heard asking: "You can't just pull it up?"

The aftermath

Footage from the ground showed the wreckage engulfed in flames, with more than 50 firefighters responding to the scene. The helicopter had been one of several in the area covering the earlier crash, in which an SUV collided with a city bus, killing two people and injuring six others. Coverage quickly shifted after NBC4 anchors lost contact with the helicopter crew.

Veteran anchor Colleen Williams confirmed the news live on air, saying: "We can now confirm that the chopper that went down in Chatsworth tonight, about two hours ago, was in fact news chopper four. We've been telling you that we've been piecing it together here, we knew it was a news chopper and we knew we'd lost contact with our people out there, and we've just received the confirmation that in fact news chopper four went down just before seven o'clock tonight in Chatsworth." She added: "We are going to take a couple of minutes to think about that, process it and regroup," before coverage was cut.

A third victim, believed to have been on the ground at the time, also died, while a fourth person was taken to hospital with serious injuries. Local police confirmed: "We do have one confirmed patient that seemed to be outside of the helicopter when it crashed. That person was declared deceased on scene."

The investigation

The National Transportation Safety Board is now investigating what caused the helicopter to rapidly lose altitude.