A woman who allegedly slammed an SUV into a Metro bus in Chatsworth, killing two people and injuring six others — in a collision that was later the scene of a deadly TV news helicopter crash — was behind bars Wednesday.
The crash occurred just after 5 p.m. in the 20900 block of Nordhoff Street, near De Soto Avenue, according to the Los Angeles Fire Department. The Metro Line 166 bus was traveling eastbound on Nordhoff Street when it was hit by the SUV traveling southbound on De Soto Avenue, according to Metro.
The SUV driver was identified by Fox11 as Bailee Rios, 36, of Simi Valley. The Los Angeles Police Department did not immediately confirm the driver’s identity, but Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department online jail records indicate a person with that name and age was arrested Tuesday night by investigators with the LAPD’s Valley Traffic Division and was booked on suspicion of murder with bail set at $4.03 million.
Jennifer Middleton of the Los Angeles Fire Department said two people died at the scene of the crash and six others were taken to a hospital.
The SUV driver was among those injured in the collision and taken to a hospital, according to Metro spokesman Jose Ubaldo. An earlier report indicated the driver had died at the hospital, but that report turned out to be unfounded.
The conditions of the remaining injured were not immediately known.
Video from the scene showed firefighters tending to multiple patients, and frantically working to free a woman who was trapped inside the bus. She was eventually freed and quickly loaded into an ambulance in unknown condition with what crews on scene described as “crushing” injuries.
A white medical examiner’s tent was erected at the scene of the bus crash where the vehicle collided with the bus, video from later in the night showed.
A large number of ambulances and fire engines responded to the scene.
It was unclear what caused the crash.
An NBC4 helicopter crew that was reporting on the fatal bus collision crashed just blocks away shortly before 7 p.m., killing three people, including the reporter and the pilot onboard the helicopter and one person on the ground, and injuring two others.