LOS ANGELES, Sept. 15 (Xinhua) -- A helicopter crashed between two commercial buildings in suburban Los Angeles on Tuesday night, killing at least three people, local authorities said.
Four people were assessed, with three pronounced dead at the scene, while another was taken to a local hospital in an unknown condition, the Los Angeles Fire Department (LAFD) said.
The crash occurred at around 7 p.m. local time (0200 GMT Wednesday) in the Chatsworth neighborhood, about 40 km northwest of downtown Los Angeles, near the site of an earlier deadly bus collision to which emergency crews had been responding.
A total of 56 firefighters responded to the incident, the LAFD said. The fire was completely extinguished and did not spread to any structures. Four automobiles and two storage containers were damaged by the fire.
NBC4 later confirmed that the crashed helicopter was the station's news helicopter.
The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board and the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration will handle the investigation, the LAFD said.
In the bus crash earlier in the evening, three people were killed and five others injured when an SUV crashed into a Metro bus in Chatsworth, according to local media reports. ■