The pain over the death of three people in the fatal helicopter accident involving NBC and Telemundo in Los Angeles reached 3,800 kilometers south, to Cuilapa, Guatemala, the impoverished community where Edy Fernando Gutiérrez Mejía, the third victim of the crash, was born. The young man, 29 years old, had arrived that same day in Chatsworth with the intention of buying a vehicle. He never returned. The helicopter that fell on him was the aircraft from which journalist Eliana Moreno and pilot George Marciniw were reporting on a terrible traffic accident. That coverage also ended up becoming a fatal episode.
The visit of “Pichi,” as he was affectionately called, was going to be brief. He arrived on Tuesday and planned to return to Guatemala the next day. His plan was simple: buy a car in California, take it to his homeland, sell it there, and make some quetzales in profit. But his plans were cut short in the most unexpected way. Shortly before 7:00 p.m., Gutiérrez Mejía was in a Chatsworth parking lot accompanied by his cousins, negotiating the purchase of the vehicle he had chosen, relatives told Telemundo 52.
In the middle of that transaction, the news helicopter identified as NewsChopper4, operated by the company Angel City Air, which was flying over the area, began to lose altitude. Within seconds, the aircraft crashed right on the spot where the Guatemalan was. The impact caused an explosion and turned that brief visit to Los Angeles into a tragedy.
Two other people, also of Guatemalan origin, were injured and discharged from a local hospital, the Guatemalan Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported this Thursday. “The consular mission maintains communication with the authorities and has established contact with family members and one of the survivors to provide assistance and legal guidance as the investigations progress,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
The agency added that it will also accompany the family in the process of repatriating the remains, which will be at their expense since Gutiérrez Mejía was in the United States as a tourist.
Gutiérrez Mejía’s relatives are now preparing “Pichi’s” final journey: to bring his remains back to Cuilapa, a community located 65 kilometers southeast of Guatemala City, where his parents await him.
In Los Angeles, the loved ones of Eliana Moreno and George Marciniw are doing the same to say goodbye to the journalist and the pilot. As a tribute, the station they worked for remembers them as their “team in the sky.”
The last video from NewsChopper4
The incident remains under investigation by federal authorities. The last video recorded from the helicopter is considered a key piece to reconstruct the seconds before and clarify the causes of the accident.
Moreno and Marciniw were broadcasting live on Tuesday the crash between a pickup truck and a bus when the helicopter violently crashed into a container and several vehicles. Marciniw was a veteran helicopter pilot. Moreno had been reporting from the air for 16 years, in English and Spanish, while operating the aircraft’s camera. Both had specialized in covering vehicle chases from the sky on the roads of Los Angeles.
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Authorities were expected to begin removing the helicopter wreckage this Thursday. The investigation is being conducted by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), and its conclusions could take more than a year. Early findings suggest the engine may have failed shortly before 7 p.m. on Tuesday.
“The video recorded while the reporter was doing the live broadcast is probably the most important evidence we have found so far,” said Fabian Salazar, lead investigator at the NTSB, during a press conference on Wednesday.
Salazar explained that investigators are seeking to gather as much information as possible at the crash site and interview witnesses. They are also trying to obtain a “high-quality copy” of the recording to send to the agency’s laboratory for detailed analysis.
“In that recording, sounds that match a change in engine speed can be clearly heard; tones that are probably alerts for the pilot are also heard. That is why it is important to take it to our laboratory, extract the data, and thus obtain concrete evidence,” the official said.
“He was a cheerful person”
Both the Guatemalan Consulate in Los Angeles and the Medical Examiner’s office confirmed Gutiérrez Mejía’s identity. On its Facebook page, the Government of Cuilapa lamented the death of its fellow citizen and expressed condolences to the family: “We offer a prayer for the eternal rest of his soul and ask God, our Lord, for much resignation for the whole family at this time.”
In two photographs of Gutiérrez Mejía, he appears smiling: in one, he poses in a snowy landscape, and in another, he holds a trophy on a soccer field. In the image released by the Government of Cuilapa, however, he looks more serious, with one hand on his chin and wearing a Boston Red Sox cap.
His hometown, Cuilapa, is a locality with cobblestone and narrow streets, with about 41,000 inhabitants, whose economy largely depends on remittances sent by those who emigrated to the United States. The municipality, in the department of Santa Rosa, is known as the “Center of the Americas,” a designation attributed to its geographic location on the continent.
There, those who knew “Pichi” remember him as an optimistic, helpful young man always willing to help. “He was a cheerful person. Someone who was always there for those who needed him. He was always a dynamic, hardworking young man,” said Daniel Castillo, a volunteer firefighter from Cuilapa, in an interview with Telemundo. “We woke up to the sad news of his death in this accident that happened in the United States,” he lamented.
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