One Drugged Driver, a Mangled Bus, and a Helicopter Falling Out of the Sky: Five Dead in LA

What Rios Actually Did

According to prosecutors, Bailee Lynn Rios, 36, got behind the wheel of her 2004 Ford Expedition on Tuesday and proceeded to do almost everything wrong a driver can do at once. She was speeding. She was impaired by drugs. She crossed into oncoming traffic to get around cars stopped at a red light. She blew through that red light. She hit a car first, then kept going and slammed directly into a Los Angeles Metro bus.

NBC News reports that one passenger was fully ejected from the bus and another was partially ejected. Surveillance video from the scene showed Rios' SUV wedged into the side of the bus like a bad dream. Investigators found drugs inside her car after the wreck.

Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman did not mince words at his press conference. "She was driving well beyond the speed limit, she entered into opposing traffic because she was approaching a red light where cars were stopped, and she didn't stop," he said. Rios now faces two counts of second-degree murder, plus charges of driving under the influence of a drug and reckless driving. Hochman told reporters she is looking at a maximum sentence of life in prison.

The People on That Bus

Daniel Castillo was 46. He worked at a car parts warehouse and took the same bus home every single day. The back seat was his favorite. He liked to watch people. His daughter, college sophomore Johaunna Castillo, told NBC Los Angeles that he called her after work every single day when they weren't in the same city, telling her about the people he'd met, the things that happened on the ride. That Tuesday, he texted to say he was getting on the bus and would call when he was walking home. The call never came.

Gage Weida was 31. He was days away from his parents visiting to celebrate his 32nd birthday. His father, Jeffrey Weida, told CBS LA: "Unfortunately, we're still heading out there, but for all the wrong reasons." There is not a sentence in this story more devastating than that one.

The Guardian reports that Castillo left behind four children. Hundreds of people have donated to an online fundraiser for his funeral expenses. The community that showed up for him in death, his daughter said, reflected exactly who he was in life.

Then the Helicopter Came Down

While the bus crash was unfolding, NewsChopper 4, owned and operated by Angel City Air and providing live aerial coverage for NBC4 and Telemundo 52, was circling overhead. Reporter Eliana Moreno called what she saw below "horrific" and "terrifying" on live television. Those were among her final broadcasts.

The helicopter suddenly lost altitude and plummeted. It came down in a fiery crash that killed Moreno and pilot George Marciniw, and also killed a man on the ground, 29-year-old Edy Gutierrez Mejia, according to the Guardian. At least four cars and two storage containers burned. NPR reports that hundreds gathered Thursday evening for a candlelit vigil in Chatsworth honoring victims of both crashes.

What caused the crash remains under active investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board. NTSB investigator Fabian Salazar told reporters the final seconds of live video the crew was broadcasting are "probably the most important evidence that we have discovered so far." In that footage, an alarm sounds inside the cockpit. A woman's voice says "Uh oh." The helicopter swings away from the bus crash site. Altitude drops fast. The same voice asks, "You can't pull up?" Then the video cuts out.

Aviation safety expert Jeff Guzzetti told NPR the alarm points to a potential loss of engine power and a dangerous drop in main rotor speed, and that the pilot appeared to be attempting an emergency autorotation maneuver, trying to use airflow to spin the rotor blades back up. It did not work.

Who Was in That Helicopter

Eliana Moreno grew up in Orange County and graduated from Chapman University in 2010 with degrees in broadcast journalism and political science. She joined Angel City Air that same year. She had been flying with Marciniw specifically since 2023, NBC4 reported.

George Marciniw grew up in Southern California and graduated from Burbank High School in 1974. Both of them worked for a contractor, doing the aerial news coverage that local television depends on for exactly the kind of story they died covering. An NBC Los Angeles anchor described them on air as "beautiful souls."

For context on just how rare and awful this is: NPR's review of federal accident records found at least eight fatal news helicopter crashes in the United States since 2000, killing 16 people total. This one, in a single afternoon, added three more to that number.

Rios' Background and What Her Family Is Saying

Rios had a prior conviction in 2022 for driving with a suspended license, according to NBC News. Earlier charges, including driving under the influence, drug possession, and carrying drug paraphernalia, were previously dismissed. DA Hochman said his office is still reviewing her full criminal record.

A longtime friend, Brad Aragon, told the California Post and confirmed to NBC News that Rios had struggled with addiction for years and had been to rehab at least once. Hours before the crash, she and Aragon were texting about getting together in October. She told him she felt shaken by recent events and was spending time around people she knew were a bad influence.

Her mother, Cindy Rios, told NBC News in a brief phone call: "It's so awful." She said she had not spoken to her daughter since the arrest and had not been contacted by law enforcement. She did not have a lawyer as of Thursday. The public defender's office said it had not been appointed to represent her. She is scheduled to appear in court Friday.

Could She Face Charges for the Helicopter Deaths Too?

That is the question reporters pressed DA Hochman on, and he declined to answer it. "We'll wait to see what the investigation reveals, and then we'll make the call at that time," he said. The NTSB is investigating both the bus collision and the helicopter crash.

The legal question is genuinely complicated. Rios did not cause the helicopter to malfunction. But her actions created the news event that sent the helicopter there. Whether prosecutors can stretch a chain of causation that far through the criminal law is something courts would have to sort out. Hochman is clearly keeping the door open.

What is not complicated is the count. Five people are dead. Two bus riders heading home. A pilot who'd spent his career in Southern California skies. A reporter who'd been doing this job since she graduated college. And a man on the ground who had nothing to do with any of it.