CHATSWORTH, Calif. — A Simi Valley woman high on drugs blew through a red light the wrong way and T-boned a packed Metro bus Tuesday afternoon, killing two passengers and injuring six others, only for the NBC4 helicopter covering the bloody scene to plunge from the sky two hours later and kill three more.
Bailee Lynn Rios, 36, was behind the wheel of a gray 2004 Ford Expedition when she tore south in the northbound lanes of De Soto Avenue just after 5 p.m. She ran the light at Nordhoff Street at high speed, clipped past another car, and slammed broadside into the eastbound Line 166 bus.
The impact was so violent the SUV’s front end nearly vanished into the bus. One passenger was thrown completely out. Another was half-ejected. Daniel Castillo, 46, died inside the bus. Gage Weida, 31, died on the pavement. Six others were hauled to hospitals.
Prosecutors say Rios had drugs in her system and narcotics in the vehicle. Los Angeles County DA Nathan Hochman charged her Thursday with two counts of second-degree murder, DUI causing injury, and reckless driving. If convicted, she faces life in prison. Bail was set at more than $4 million.
Rios has a prior record that includes a 2016 drug-possession conviction and a 2022 conviction for driving on a suspended license. She was injured in the crash, pulled from the wreckage, and booked.
Bystander video circulating online shows the orange-and-white Metro bus ripped open at the side, the Expedition jammed into it like a battering ram, shattered glass on the sidewalk, and stunned onlookers standing in the intersection as traffic lights kept cycling.
Then the night got worse.
Around 7 p.m., the NBC4 chopper that had been circling the crash scene dropped out of the sky a few blocks away on Mason Avenue. It slammed into commercial buildings and cargo containers and burst into flames. Pilot George Marciniw, reporter Eliana Moreno, and a man on the ground, 29-year-old Edy Gutierrez Mejia, were killed.
Live audio from the final moments captured Moreno asking, “You can’t pull up?” before the picture cut out. NBC4 confirmed the loss of its crew on air that night. The NTSB is investigating the helicopter crash separately from the bus wreck.
Five people dead in one neighborhood in two hours. One driver allegedly high, going the wrong way, and refusing to stop. One news crew that never made it home from covering it.
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