Eliana Moreno

Moreno was born in Orange County, California, and later described as a Tustin native. By age 11 she already wanted to work in television news. She studied at Chapman University's Dodge College of Film and Media Arts, graduating in 2010 with degrees in broadcast journalism and political science. She later said Chapman taught her camera, editing and reporting skills she used every day in the helicopter, including lessons from a sports broadcasting class that shaped how she called breaking news from the air.

In September 2010 she joined Angel City Air's helicopter team. She worked as reporter, photographer and editor at once, covering brush fires, police pursuits and anything else that could be told from above. Early credits included aerial reporting for KCAL 9 and KCBS 2. A 2015 Chapman profile noted she was among the youngest aerial journalists in the nation's second-largest media market.

Moreno became a familiar voice on NBC Los Angeles and Telemundo 52, delivering live bilingual coverage from NewsChopper4. She covered wildfires including the Skirball Fire near the Getty Center in 2017, insisting that being first never mattered more than being right when homes and routes were at risk. In 2022 she won an RTDNA award for aerial coverage of a deadly Windsor Hills crash. From 2023 she regularly flew with pilot George Marciniw.

Moreno described aerial journalism as showing where a fire started, where it was going, and which homes were threatened. Whiteman Airport, in a collaboration Reel posted weeks before her death, said aerial photography turns smoke on the horizon into critical information that saves lives and property, and thanked Eli in the Heli and NewsChopper4 for real-time brushfire coverage.

On Instagram as eli_in_the_heli she shared helicopter work alongside pictures of chickens, pet dogs and everyday life. On 28 October 2025 she announced her engagement to Robert Barrientos. In May 2026 the couple finished the Orange County half marathon in under two hours after she set a New Year resolution to run a single mile despite asthma. She often wrote that she had the best job in the world.

On the evening of 15 September 2026, NewsChopper4 was covering a fatal Metro bus and SUV collision in Chatsworth when the helicopter crashed just before 7 p.m. local time between commercial buildings in the 9100 block of North Mason Avenue. The impact sparked a fire that damaged vehicles and storage containers. Moreno and Marciniw were killed; a pedestrian on the ground also died, and another person was hospitalized. The aircraft was a Eurocopter AS 350 B2 operated by Angel City Air for NBCLA and Telemundo 52. The National Transportation Safety Board and Federal Aviation Administration opened an investigation. Moreno was 38.

NBC4 anchor Colleen Williams confirmed the deaths on air with heavy hearts, saying the station had lost valued friends and colleagues while on assignment. Telemundo called Moreno a wonderful human being and the best airborne reporter in all of Los Angeles. Fellow aerial reporter Roland Sprewell thanked her for training him and wrote, Spread your wings and fly Eliana and George. Mayor Karen Bass and Governor Gavin Newsom issued statements of condolence for the Chatsworth victims and the NBC4 family.

Moreno's legacy is the bilingual eye in the sky that Los Angeles viewers relied on during fires, pursuits and disasters, and the example she set as a reporter who also shot and edited under pressure. Chapman University remembered an alumna who turned classroom craft into public-service journalism from Whiteman Airport hangars to live breaking news. Colleagues remembered professionalism, kindness and a refusal to treat being first as more important than being right.

• Angel City Air aerial journalist from September 2010
• KCAL 9 and KCBS 2 aerial reporting
• NBC4 and Telemundo 52 NewsChopper4 bilingual coverage
• Skirball Fire and other Southern California wildfire reporting
• 2022 RTDNA award for Windsor Hills crash coverage
• Instagram presence as Eli in the Heli

Professionally she was Eliana Moreno; viewers and social media followers also knew her as Eli in the Heli. She reported in English and Spanish for NBC4 and Telemundo 52, a dual role that made her coverage reachable across language communities during emergencies.