‘She died doing what she loved’: Friends mourn KNBC aerial reporter Eliana Moreno

From the sky, in words and on camera, Eliana Moreno gathered sweeping stories of Los Angeles from NewsChopper 4. On Sept. 16, the city mourned the NBC4 and Telemundo 52 journalist, who died in a helicopter crash in Chatsworth Tuesday night. Moreno and pilot George Marciniw were reporting on a deadly collision between a Ford Expedition and a Metro bus when their helicopter went down and burst into flames near a storage facility. She was 38.

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Flowers lined the fence at Whiteman Airport where the NBCLA helicopters were parked Wednesday as people who knew Moreno and Marciniw visited throughout the day to pay their respects.

Related: 3 dead after NBC4 helicopter crashes in Chatsworth; video may offer clues to crash’s cause

Included in the display were two stuffed animals, representing Moreno’s beloved rescue dogs, Fullerton, whom Moreno called “Fully” and Penrose.

Moreno was an Orange County native who graduated from Chapman University in 2010 with degrees in broadcast journalism and social sciences. Moreno was engaged to fiance Robert Barrientos, according to her social media.

She joined the Angel City Air helicopter team in September 2010 and reported for several Southern California media outlets.

Jake Asner, creator of Traffic News LA, organized the small memorial Wednesday morning, saying that he felt the Whiteman Airport was the best place to honor Moreno.

“This morning, I hadn’t heard of any public memorials and I feel like a crash site is not a very respectful place to do that,” Asner said. “So, I wanted to come out here to the place she loved; where her helicopter took off every morning and landed every night.”

Asner first met Moreno is 2022 when he trained with her for four months on how to be an aerial journalist.

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“She was so amazing,” he said. “She could listen to five radios while talking to the assignment desk and flying a pursuit, tracking a car with a camera. She made it look like it was the easiest thing in the world.”

Asner said that she was a great teacher and he had “never learned anything so fast.” Moreno had a love for teaching and would visit local schools to teach the kids about the work she did as an NBC4 reporter.

“She was an amazing person and always had a smile on her face,” Asner said. “The most warm-hearted and incredible person.

“It was heartbreaking,” he said of Moreno’s death. “Once I realized it was her, my heart sank. I couldn’t sleep last night. I still can’t believe it.”

Moreno’s longtime friend Ernie Castelo, a freelance broadcast journalist, experienced the same sleepless night on Tuesday.

“I had a feeling it was NBC News when they said they couldn’t reach them. I remember thinking, ‘I hope it’s not her,’ and immediately hoping it wasn’t anyone else, that whoever it was got out safely,” he said.

Castelo remembers meeting Moreno at Santa Ana College 17 years ago. It was 2010 and she had just graduated from Chapman University but enrolled at the community college so she could develop a resume reel.

“I went to her 22nd birthday and she was so determined to get into news, so I gave her a set of cups, with logos for ABC, CBS, NBC and CNN, and she told me it was her favorite gift,” Castelo said, adding with a laugh, “She was always good at everything. That was the most irritating part. She had passion for the job and it was fun for her.”

Castelo, president of the scholarship fund for the Radio & Television News Association (RTNA), would later work with Moreno reporting for the City of Irvine in 2010.

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Moreno, who graduated from Foothill High School in Santa Ana in 2006, would go on to report for several media outlets before getting hired at Angel City Air Inc., which contracts its aerial coverage with NBC and Telemundo. She has been on that job since September 2010.

“She died doing what she loved,” Castelo said.

The two also tag-teamed and spoke to aspiring journalists at the Orange County School of the Arts, an opportunity Moreno loved, her friend said, adding her own biggest influence was Vera Jimenez, meteorologist at KTLA 5.

A consistent message he heard Moreno share was, “to be passionate about everything you do, even beyond journalism.”

At Whiteman Airport, Juan Manuel, 21, a reporter for Traffic News LA, said he was devastated to hear who had died in the helicopter crash.

Manuel said he decided to be an aerial reporter because of Moreno, with whom he would share news tips.

“It’s one of my dream jobs because of her and her reporting skills,” he added.

On her Instagram page “Eli in the Heli,” Moreno documented a busy television news reporter life, covering breaking news such as police pursuits and wildfires but also opening day at Dodger Stadium, trips to Disneyland and the beach, brunch dates with girlfriends, including “Chicas de Noticias,” tending to her chickens, and posting many photos of her two rescue dogs Penrose and Fully.

Moreno also posted many aerial views of downtown L.A., captioning one, “This never gets old.”

Tim Lynn, 72, a retired KTLA Sky5 news pilot, worked and mentored Moreno from 2010 to 2015. He remembers teasing her when she moved on to work for Telemundo: “You sound better in Spanish than in English.”

Their rarified view of the news came with many graphic scenes of traffic accidents and shootings, and Lynn said the veteran reporters helped Moreno deal with that part of reporting, advising her to compartmentalize the tough stuff.

“It was her willingness to not let anything top her,” he said of Moreno’s response. “She was always striving to do more and do better. She was coming to do the job she loved. She was a ray of sunshine in a rough and tumble business.”

Councilmember John Dumitru of Orange paid tribute to Moreno and her deep ties to the city in an online post.

“Eliana grew up here in Orange County, attended Chapman University and loved Old Towne Orange, and was simply one of the kindest, most genuine people I had ever met and many in our city I would say had the same interaction,” he wrote. “A very bright light was extinguished far too soon. My prayers are with Eliana and George’s families, friends, and everyone at KNBC.”

Reporter John Cádiz Klemack said losing his colleagues while they were on the job is almost impossible to comprehend.

“They left to cover breaking news. They were doing their jobs. And like so many times before, we expected them to come home,” Cádiz Klemack wrote on Facebook. “Perhaps the hardest part is that our instinct as journalists is to immediately start asking questions: What happened? How did it happen? Why? But sometimes there simply aren’t words or answers big enough for the loss.”

He concluded with a hope that people will remember Moreno and Marciniw “not simply for the work they did, but for who they were and what they meant to all of us who had the privilege of working beside them.”

Brenda Castillo, president and CEO of the National Hispanic Media Coalition, said the Whittier-based nonprofit partners with NBC Telemundo on different projects.

“Heartbroken by the loss of Eliana Moreno,” she said in a statement. “This young Latina journalist gave her voice and her work to the community she called home. She truly represented us with dedication. Sending love to her family and those she influenced in this city.”

Moreno was engaged to Robert Barrientos last October, posting a photo of the two of them with their three dogs. On Wednesday, the profile on Barrientos’ private Instagram account contained two lines. The first read “Psalm 40,” “I wait for the Lord, who bends down to me and hears my cry.”

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The last line contained the name “Eliana” and beside it, a red heart.