NEWPORT BEACH, Calif. —

A police officer died and another was injured after a police helicopter crashed in southern California Saturday night, officials said.

The two officers were aboard the Huntington Beach Police Department's helicopter "HB1" responding to a disturbance call when it crashed into the water in Newport Beach, police chief Eric Parra said during a news conference.

Officer Nicholas Vella, 44, died from injuries suffered in the crash, the police chief said.

"Our deepest sympathies to the family of Officer Vella," said Huntington Beach Mayor Barbara Delgleize. "This tragic accident serves as a reminder of the danger and the risks that our police officers put themselves in on a daily basis to protect our community."

Another officer, a 16-year veteran, was rescued and taken to a hospital where he is in stable condition, police said.

Authorities are uncertain why the helicopter crashed, and an investigation is underway as the police department inspects other aircrafts, Parra said.

Huntington Beach police "and the law enforcement community have lost an officer that was truly dedicated to his job, that was doing what he loved doing, and this is a tragedy that we are investigating," Parra said.

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) and the Orange County Sheriff's Department major accident reconstruction team are investigating the crash, according to Parra.

Huntington Beach and Newport Beach are adjoining seaside communities in Orange County, California.

This crash comes on the heels of another helicopter wreck just hours earlier near the shoreline of Miami Beach.

At approximately 1:10 p.m. Saturday, captured in a stunning video, a helicopter crashed into the Atlantic Ocean off Miami Beach, injuring two people.

The two injured passengers were transported to Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami. Their conditions were described as "stable." A third passenger was not injured in the crash, according to Miami Beach Police Public Information Officer Ernesto Rodriguez.

NEW ORLEANS —

“I don't know any way else to describe it. It's just an unreal thing to believe he's not here anymore,” Josh Hawley's brother David said.

When David heard about Tuesday’s crash, he immediately thought of him and tried to send him a text message.

“I knew it wasn't coming, it was a Hail Mary,” David said. “It’s been an incredibly tragic event for our family. I think a lot of people have seen the story and videos online. Let people know there’s a face behind this and a real good man that’s going to be missed."

A helicopter crashed onto the Bonnet Carré Spillway Bridge in New Orleans, Louisiana, Tuesday afternoon, killing Josh Hawley, Louisiana State Police said.

Now, his family is speaking out about the kind of man he was.

"He was a marine, EMT, volunteer firefighter, everything. If there's a hero job, Josh did it,” Josh Hawley's sister Jessica Hawley Harrison said. “I know it sounds like such a word to throw out and call somebody a hero. My brother was a hero because he didn’t do it to do attention. He did it to help people. He seemed invincible he was a very tough person very strong. I don’t think he realized how incredible he was. I don’t think he did. He was funny, helpful and clever.

"Yesterday when there was a helicopter flying low usually I would walk outside just to look I'm always wanting to look at the sky and I couldn't bring myself to do it yesterday. I couldn't bring myself to go look at the helicopter in the sky I need it wasn't him I just it will be tough but he was doing what he loved,” David said.

Josh lived in Denham Springs, Louisiana. His passion was flying. His greatest love was his family.

He was married to his wife for eight years. They have three sons ages 3, 4 and 7.

"He had a playset he was going buy for his kids for Christmas,” David said.

Josh was looking forward to celebrating Christmas as a family next week.

“The night before the crash Josh called my dad and said we need to get together on Christmas Eve even if it's just us I need to be around family,” David said.

To add to the heartbreak right before Hurricane Ida, Josh lost his mother to a rare cancer.

"This is already going to be tough with my mom gone she loved Christmas. It's going to be a tough one,” Jessica said.

"Just live in the day appreciate what you have,” David said. “I've been hugging my kids a little tighter. Calling family more, you don't know when your time is up we are on this world a short time and you don't know when your family is going to be around. Live each day to the fullest like Josh would. He left a great impact on the world. We want to make sure his life is remembered and we want to make sure his impact is heard and felt and everything that he stood for. Helping people and the community and being there for one another we want to make sure the right stories get told about him."

File video above: Celebrities uplift Vanessa Bryant after eulogizing her late husband and daughter

This week will come with reflections of tragedies and the next phase of former President Donald Trump's second impeachment case.

This week will have been one year after a deadly helicopter crash claimed nine lives and 35 years after the space shuttle Challenger explosion claimed seven lives.

Here's what to know.

Impeachment case moves forward

The House of Representatives is moving forward on the second impeachment of former President Donald Trump, less than a week after he left office.

It involves a single charge of incitement of insurrection for the deadly attack on the Capitol that unfolded on Jan. 6.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will send the article of impeachment late Monday, with senators sworn in as jurors Tuesday.

In December 2019, Trump was impeached by the House on two articles: abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. House Democrats claimed the president abused power like no other leader in U.S. history when he pressured Ukraine to investigate Biden and his son, Hunter Biden, ahead of the 2020 election. The Senate acquitted him on both articles in February.

Opening arguments for the second trial, of which no president has ever faced previously, will move to February.

1 year passes since Kobe helicopter crash

Tuesday marks one year since a tragic helicopter crash killed basketball legend Kobe Bryant along with his daughter Gianna and her basketball teammate and six other people.

In addition to Bryant, 41, and his 13-year-old daughter, the crash claimed the lives of Payton Chester, 13; Sarah Chester, 45; Alyssa Altobelli, 14; Keri Altobelli, 46; John Altobelli, 56; Christina Mauser, 38; and the helicopter's pilot, Ara Zobayan, 50.

Bryant was posthumously selected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in early 2020, but an enshrinement ceremony for that class is slated for May 13-15.

Remembering the Challenger tragedy

Thursday will mark 35 years after the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger, claiming the lives of seven people: Christa McAuliffe, Gregory Jarvis, Ronald McNair, Ellison Onizuka, Judith Resnik, Dick Scobee and Michael Smith.

This year, NASA's annual Day of Remembrance ceremony will be livestreamed on Facebook at 11 a.m. ET due to social distancing precautions, the Kennedy Space Center said.

The explosion happened 73 seconds after liftoff.

The Associated Press and CNN contributed.

When we spoke with Tyson Phillips and Brett Harlow, they said it was a perfect day to fly in their eyes.

“An absolutely beautiful day to fly, light winds,” Phillips said.

So, it was hard to believe that they’d want to change that.

“When we start flying, our pilot, Brett, is going to start experiencing bad visibility,” Phillips explained.

Tyson Phillips is the president of AT Systems LLC. They’ve developed a device to help train pilots in bad visibility situations.

“I cannot see anything out in front of the aircraft at this point,” said Brett Harlow, Chief Pilot of Axxeum.

Harlow was wearing an augmented reality device, which simulates clouds, dust and other weather elements that limit visibility.

“The pilot has no idea when the instructor will input,” Harlow said. “So, the pilot has no idea when to expect it.”

“With our system, we control the visibility between unlimited visibility down to no visibility and everywhere in between,” Phillips said. “When we confuse the brain with both visual and vestibular illusions, the brain struggles to comprehend and it goes into what we call a fast brain mode. It responds intuitively, but the problem is to respond intuitively. You have to have been trained and we’ve never trained pilots to deal with visual and vestibular confusion.”

That means both your eyes and your sense of balance are being thrown off.

Phillips has been in the Army for 20 years and a pilot for 17 of those. This idea came from an accident that hit close to home for him.

“In 2015, the Louisiana National Guard crashed a Black Hawk off the coast of Florida,” Phillips said. “The aircraft involved in that accident was the most advanced the Army had with a very experienced crew which led us to why do we keep having these accidents?”

Weather-related helicopter crashes aren’t anything new.

“This is a problem that's gone on as long as helicopter aviation has been around,” Phillips said.

More recently, the crash involving NBA star Kobe Bryant brought this topic worldwide attention. Phillips saw it as a learning moment, one that could bring the need for more weather-related pilot training to the spotlight.

“With the Kobe crash, it's easy to armchair quarterback and it's easy to look back on things and say, 'I won't do this, I won't do that,'” Harlow said.

Harlow flies for Axxeum, a company that does everything from search and rescue, to firefighting, to cargo and charter flights.

“Definitely is a force multiplier for the training side of it.”

Phillips said they’ve built a number of safety systems, since they are flying helicopters and purposefully obstructing a pilot’s vision. First, a safety pilot who is focused on outside the aircraft. Second, limits on the aircraft.

If the training pilot breaks those limits, Phillips said, "the entire assembly will go clear and clear in front of his field of view, the reason for this is that added layer of safety.”

“With devices like this, it definitely adds to more of the real world scenarios the pilots need,” Harlow said.

As Phillips continues to develop the device, his goal is to have it as an extra tool for pilot training for military, law enforcement, private, commercial, you name it.

“Any kind of training device or any kind of training input that I can get as a pilot, and I think most pilots would agree, that there's no such thing as over training in aviation,” Harlow said.

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>> BREAKING DEVELOPMENT JUST IN AFTER A FIERY HELICOPTER CRASH IN OKLAHOMA CITY. JESSICA: THIS IS HAPPENING AT CLARENCE HE PAGE MUNICIPAL AIRPORT JUST WEST OF YUKON, AND IS WHERE WE FIND SKY 5. ERIN WAS FIRST ON SCENE AND LEADS OUR TEAM COVERAGE. WHAT HAPPENED? ERIN: WHEN WE GOT TO THE SCENE, WE TALKED TO FIRE OFFICIALS, AND THEY DO NOT HAVE ALL THE DETAILS JUST YET. THEY TELL US TWO PILOTS WERE IN A HELICOPTER WHEN IT CAUGHT ON FIRE. IT WAS ACTUALLY ON FIRE WHILE FLYING IN THE SKY. THEY EITHER CRASHED OR HAD A CONTROLLED LANDING. INVESTIGATORS DO NOT KNOW HOW THEY GOT TO THE GROUND JUST YET. THEY WERE ABLE TO EXIT THE HELICOPTER WHILE IT WAS ON FIRE. THEY HAVE NON-LIFE-THREATENING INJURIES AND ARE DOING OK. FIREFIGHTERS TELL US WHEN THEY GOT TO THE SCENE, THE HELICOPTER WAS SO SEVERELY BURNED, JUST THE FRAME WAS LEFT. >> THERE APPEARED TO BE NO LIFE-THREATENING INJURIES. THEY DID INDICATE THE HELICOPTER WAS ON FIRE BEFORE IT EVEN HIT THE GROUND. ERIN: AGAIN, THOSE PILOTS ARE TAKEN TO NEARBY HOSPITALS JUST TO CHECK FOR ANY INTERNAL DAMAGE OR INTERNAL INJURIES, BUT FIRE OFFICIALS TELL US THEY WERE WALKING AND TALKING AND SEEMED OK. I’M GOING TO TOSS THINGS UP TO SKY 5 WITH CHASE. I KNOW YOU’RE GETTING A BETTER VISUAL THAN I AM ON THE GROUND. YOU CAN SEE SOME OF THE WRECKAGE FROM THE HELICOPTER ITSELF. WHAT ARE YOU SEEING? CHASE: THAT’S RIGHT. IS IT’S A MIRACLE THESE PILOTS WERE ABLE TO GET OUT OF THE HELICOPTER WITHOUT SERIOUS INJURIES. YOU MENTIONED THE HELICOPTER WAS ON FIRE. THAT MIGHT BE AN INDICATION OF IF THE HELICOPTER WAS ON FIRE, THAT COCKPIT COULD HAVE FILLED UP WITH SMOKE. THAT IS SOMETHING COMMON WHEN YOU HAVE AN AIRCRAFT FIRE IN FLIGHT, SO THE VISIBILITY MAY HAVE REALLY BEEN IMPAIRED WHEN THEY TRIED TO PUT THIS HELICOPTER ON THE GROUND, SO IT REALLY SAYS A LOT ABOUT THE TRAINING OF THE PILOTS, BEING ABLE TO GET THE HELICOPTER ON THE GROUND. THEY WERE ABLE TO GET AWAY WITHOUT SERIOUS INJURIES, AND THAT IS REALLY, REALLY GOOD NEWS. AGAIN, IF YOU ARE NOT FAMILIAR WITH WHERE THIS IS, THIS IS IN BETWEEN UCONN AND EL RENO, SOUTH OF I-40 ON THE FAR WEST SIDE OF THE AIRPORT. WE SEE COMPLETE DESTRUCTION OF THIS HELICOPTER. WE WILL BE GETTING MORE INFORMATION FOR YOU AS THE AFTERNOON AND EVENING GOES ON. IF YOU WANT MORE, WE ARE LIVE ON FACEBOOK, SO YOU CAN GET ON OUR KOCO PAGE ON FACEBOOK AND LISTEN.

VIDEO: Pilots escape after helicopter crashes, catches fire in Oklahoma

Updated: 7:06 PM EDT May 13, 2021

Two pilots are OK after a helicopter crashed and caught fire Wednesday afternoon in Oklahoma.Oklahoma City Fire Department officials said by the time crews got to the scene, the helicopter was almost burnt down entirely to the frame.Both pilots got out OK and are fine. Fire officials said they hardly have any injuries.It’s unclear if the pilots jumped out before the helicopter crashed or if they had a controlled landing and then got out, but officials said they believe they got out after they landed.Authorities later confirmed that the helicopter was a U.S. Customs and Border Protection training helicopter, and the people inside were an instructor and a student.

Two pilots are OK after a helicopter crashed and caught fire Wednesday afternoon in Oklahoma.

Oklahoma City Fire Department officials said by the time crews got to the scene, the helicopter was almost burnt down entirely to the frame.

Both pilots got out OK and are fine. Fire officials said they hardly have any injuries.

It’s unclear if the pilots jumped out before the helicopter crashed or if they had a controlled landing and then got out, but officials said they believe they got out after they landed.

Authorities later confirmed that the helicopter was a U.S. Customs and Border Protection training helicopter, and the people inside were an instructor and a student.