For nearly seven decades, news helicopters have observed Los Angeles from above.

Whether a wildfire, a mudslide, or O.J. Simpson fleeing the police along its ribbons of highway, an “eye in the sky” tracked it and advised millions how to keep out of harm’s way.

On Tuesday, one of those airborne newsrooms plummeted live on-air and erupted in flames, claiming three lives while journalists were documenting the collision between an SUV and a city bus.

NBC4 Los Angeles reported that two individuals aboard the helicopter — Eliana Moreno and pilot George Marciniw — lost their lives, and fire officials stated that a third person, Edy Gutierrez Mejia, perished on the ground.

It was a harrowing addition to at least eight fatal crashes involving news helicopters in the U.S. since 2000, in which 16 people have been killed.

Moreno, widely known as "Eli in the Heli," had been an aerial journalist since 2010, mastering a demanding form of reporting that requires editing, shooting video, an intimate knowledge of a city — and quick thinking.

“Having logged 76 hours since Sunday, I’m on the verge of completion!” she posted to Instagram on Sept. 29, 2023.

“I can’t complain, though, for I have the best job in the world.”

Broadcasting news from the air undeniably serves the public, continuing the tradition of delivery by horseback, teletype and satellite.

It is also true that the “Telecopter” was created in Los Angeles to beat the competition to the scene, according to its inventor, John Silva, chief engineer for KTLA-TV when the machine debuted in 1958.

News from the air captivated audiences — and it brought a new era of big money for local television stations.

In a 2002 interview with the Television Academy Foundation, Silva recalled sitting on the freeway, frustrated by coverage of the reporters — press stories about which journalists reached major news scenes first and were therefore “the hero.”

"It came to me suddenly.

'How can we beat the competition?'" Silva recalled.

"If we could build a news mobile unit in a helicopter, we could get over it all, get there first, avoid the traffic, and get to all the stories before anyone in the competition.

It would be a wonderful thing.'"

Yet it was by no means straightforward.

The project had to remain strictly confidential.

The helicopter needed to be selected and equipped in the extensive backyard property of a news executive, hidden from the sight of competitors.

Silva had to work out how to cut the 2,000 pounds (900 kilograms) of camera equipment down to fewer than 400 pounds (181 kilograms).

And crucially, how to transmit the news from the air to a receiving dish on a mountain and, in the end, to millions of Angelenos.

At one point during testing, while airborne, Silva reportedly edged out onto the helicopter's right skid — without a safety belt — to investigate what was causing the intense vibrations that shook the cockpit, according to a 2009 interview with Smithsonian Magazine.

At 6:30 p.m. on July 24, 1958, KTLA preempted its regular programming in order to broadcast the view from above the City of Angels.

The station amassed unprecedented advertising revenue, with Procter & Gamble disbursing $250,000 to sponsor “Telecopter” coverage, the magazine reported.

“It broadened the scope of what news could accomplish, much as the live camera on the ground did,” Stan Chambers, then a KTLA news correspondent, told the same foundation.

Until that point, he said, “television news was not that important to a lot of decision-makers.

Then the helicopter truly captivated everybody.”

Silva garnered two Emmy awards for his invention.

Aerial reporting punctuated a heady era of television journalism that was increasingly striving for live, real-time coverage.

Americans were captivated by broadcasts of the 1992 L.A. riots and, two years later, by the two-hour pursuit of O.J. Simpson's white Ford Bronco.

Together, these two events did much to confirm the appeal of live crisis coverage from the air.

In 1977, a KNBC news helicopter crashed after running out of fuel while returning to the station following its coverage of a wildfire in Santa Barbara, killing both the pilot and the camera operator.

Nine years later, a helicopter carrying a radio traffic reporter over New York City for a live rush-hour broadcast plunged into the Hudson River, killing her and critically injuring the pilot.

The reporter, WNBC Radio’s Jane Dornacker, could be heard screaming, “Hit the water!” as the helicopter went down.

And in 2007, two news helicopters covering a police chase on live television collided and crashed, killing all four people on board in a plunge that viewers saw as a jumble of spinning, broken images.

The NTSB said the crash happened because two of the pilots, who were also working as reporters, were distracted by the chase on the ground.

Tammy Rose, a journalist of over 20 years' standing, was working for KPNX in Phoenix in 2007 when the two television helicopters collided, and she has lived through her share of harrowing incidents.

Nevertheless, she said in an interview Wednesday, journalists and pilots adhere to stringent protocols in order to manage the risks.

In Phoenix, following the crash, all five news stations reached an agreement to share a single news helicopter.

Meanwhile, the company she works for in Houston, Helicopters Inc., insists that its pilots maintain an altitude above 500 feet, thereby ensuring they have sufficient altitude to maneuver in the event of a problem such as an engine failure.

“A news helicopter is more than just a flying camera,” said Rose, who now reports for ABC-13 in Houston and says her passion keeps her flying.

“As a reporter aboard the aircraft, I could see the bigger picture, communicate with the newsroom, gather information and report live while events were unfolding.”

On Wednesday, NBC4 reported that Moreno and Marciniw had become known as “the eyes and ears in the sky” for two newsrooms — NBCLA and Telemundo 52 — and had logged hundreds of hours together since they began working together in 2023.

According to NBC4, Marciniw was believed to have had more than 30 years of flight experience and was respected in the industry.

Esteban Jimenez, a fellow helicopter pilot, told the channel that he had been acquainted with Marciniw since the 1990s and that the two had recently conversed about retirement.

Moreno was awestruck by the sheer breadth of subjects the team was capable of covering — and she appeared to undertake everything short of piloting the helicopter.

“I’m not merely a photographer or reporter or editor, I’m in fact doing all three things simultaneously,” she told her alma mater, Chapman University.

In a social media posting from Whiteman Airport on July 31, she remarked that any kind of spot news was fair game, but that the brush fires which plague Southern California were of critical importance.

“It’s really one of the best stories to cover from the helicopter, because the helicopter is able to show here’s where the fire started, here’s where it’s going, these are the homes that are threatened.”

It merely serves to demonstrate the power we wield by being the eye in the sky.

Josh Funk, a transportation correspondent for the Associated Press, contributed reporting from Omaha, Nebraska, while Kellman filed his report from London.