On Tuesday, September 15, 2026, at about 5 p.m., an SUV struck the side of an L.A. Metro bus at the intersection of West Nordhoff Street and De Soto Avenue in Chatsworth. According to the Los Angeles Fire Department, as reported by KTLA, at least two people died at the scene and six patients were taken to hospitals. An Urban Search and Rescue team was called in to free people trapped inside the bus, and the intersection was closed into the evening while police and firefighters worked. The story was still developing when this was written, and the numbers may change.
Our office is about two miles from that intersection. This post is not about who was at fault. The investigation has barely started, and the people who know the most are the LAPD Valley Traffic Division investigators and the fire crews who were there. This post is about what happens next for the people who were on the bus, the people in the SUV, and the families of the two who died. The decisions made in the first few days and the first few months matter more than most people expect.
Who was involved, and why that matters
A crash between a private vehicle and a Metro bus creates two different kinds of claims at the same time, and each runs on its own clock.
The SUV driver is a private motorist. A claim for injuries caused by a private driver is an ordinary California negligence claim. It is brought against the driver, it is usually paid by the driver’s auto insurance, and the deadline to file a lawsuit is two years from the date of injury under Code of Civil Procedure 335.1. We do not know yet what insurance the SUV driver carried, and that question will shape a great deal of what follows. Our post on what happens when the driver who hit you has no insurance explains why.
The bus belongs to the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, a public entity. Any claim against Metro, whether it concerns how the bus was driven, how it was maintained, or what happened to the passengers inside it, falls under the California Government Claims Act. That means a written claim must be presented to Metro within six months of the injury under Government Code 911.2, before any lawsuit can be filed. Six months from September 15, 2026 is March 15, 2027. Our bus accident page explains how a claim against a transit agency works.
To be clear, nothing reported so far suggests the bus driver did anything wrong. The reported facts are that an SUV hit the side of the bus. Even so, a passenger’s lawyer cannot decide in the first week which claims to keep and which to drop. The careful course is to preserve every claim, including the one against the public entity, and let the evidence show who is responsible. A claim that is never presented is lost for good. A claim that is presented and later turns out to be unnecessary costs nothing.
If you were a passenger on the bus
Passengers are in the strongest position under California law, because a passenger almost never bears any fault for a collision. For a passenger, the questions are about injuries, insurance and deadlines, not blame.
Get examined, even if you walked away. A side impact on a heavy vehicle throws passengers against seats, poles and windows, and injuries that appear two or three days later are common. Concussions, neck and back strains, and shoulder and knee injuries from bracing are the usual ones. Our brain injury page explains the concussion symptoms to watch for. If you did not go to a hospital from the scene, see a doctor or urgent care this week and tell them you were in the bus crash at Nordhoff and De Soto. The medical record that says so is the foundation of any claim. Waiting hurts both your health and your case.
Write down what you remember now: where you were sitting, what you saw and heard, who was near you, and which hospital you went to. Memories of a crash blur within days.
Keep every piece of paper, including hospital discharge papers, any LAFD incident information you were given, bus fare records or a TAP card history that shows you were aboard, and photos of your injuries.
Do not give a recorded statement to any insurance company yet. An insurance representative for the SUV driver may call. You are not required to give a recorded statement, and there is no advantage to giving one before you know the full extent of your injuries. Our post on recorded statements explains why.
Ask about your own coverage. If you have your own auto insurance, it may include medical payments coverage or uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage that applies even though you were riding a bus and not driving your own car. Which policies apply, and in what order, is one of the first things a lawyer sorts out. See who pays medical bills after a crash for how that usually works.
If you lost a family member
Two people died in this crash. For their families, the next few days will be about the coroner, the funeral home and each other, not about lawyers. When the time comes to ask the legal questions, here is what California law provides.
California’s wrongful death statute, Code of Civil Procedure 377.60, lists who may bring a wrongful death claim: the surviving spouse or domestic partner, the children, and, in some circumstances, other family members who depended on the person who died. A separate survival action under Code of Civil Procedure 377.30 belongs to the estate. The general deadline is two years, but if any part of the claim is against Metro, the six-month government claim deadline applies to that part. Families should not assume they have two years to decide. Our wrongful death page explains how these claims work.
We do not yet know who the two people were or which vehicle they were in, and we are not going to speculate. What we can say is that the family of anyone who dies in a crash like this should have the evidence requested in writing before it disappears. That brings us to the next point.
The evidence that is being overwritten right now
Every Metro bus carries cameras. The interior cameras show what happened to the passengers, and the forward-facing camera shows the intersection in the seconds before impact. Metro keeps those recordings for a limited time before they are overwritten. Dispatch records show the route, the schedule and any radio traffic. The bus’s own event data recorder captures speed and braking.
The SUV almost certainly has an event data recorder as well, and the intersection at Nordhoff and De Soto is surrounded by businesses with their own cameras. Traffic signal timing records for the intersection can be requested from the City.
None of this is preserved automatically for injured people. It is preserved when someone sends a written preservation demand to Metro, to the SUV driver’s insurer, and to the businesses at the corner, identifying the date, time, route and location. That letter should go out within days. A letter sent in the fifth month is on time for the government claim but too late for the video.
The LAPD report is separate. The Valley Traffic Division investigates fatal collisions in this part of the Valley, and a fatal crash report takes longer to complete than an ordinary one. Ask for the report number now. The report itself will follow.
What the SUV driver’s passengers should know
Passengers in the SUV, if there were any, have claims too. A passenger in a private vehicle can bring a claim against the driver’s insurance, against any other driver who was at fault, and against the passenger’s own uninsured motorist coverage if the responsible policy is too small. Being a friend or family member of the driver does not change that. The claim is against the insurance policy, not the person. Our car accident page covers passenger claims in more detail.
A second emergency the same evening
Just before 7 p.m., while crews were still working at Nordhoff and De Soto, a helicopter went down between two commercial buildings at 9151 N. Mason Avenue, less than a quarter mile from the bus crash, according to the Los Angeles Fire Department as reported by KTLA. Firefighters put out the resulting fire, which had threatened four nearby vehicles, and medical personnel began pulling an unknown number of patients from the aircraft. KTLA reported that several news helicopters had been flying over the bus crash scene and that it was not yet clear whether this aircraft was one of them.
That is everything that has been reported, and we are not going to add to it. An aircraft crash is investigated by the National Transportation Safety Board and the FAA on a much longer timeline than a street collision. The claims that can follow, whether for the people in the aircraft, for anyone hurt on the ground, or for the owners of damaged property, follow different rules from a bus or car case. If you were hurt at or near the Mason Avenue scene, the same first steps apply: get examined, keep your records, and write down what you saw while it is fresh. If it turns out that a public agency operated the aircraft, the six-month rule described above would apply to that claim as well.
A word about the intersection
The intersection of Nordhoff Street and De Soto Avenue is wide and signalized, on the eastern edge of Chatsworth, with the Chatsworth Metrolink station and the G Line terminus to the northwest and heavy commuter traffic in both directions at 5 p.m. Whether anything about the intersection itself contributed to this crash is a question for the investigation. If it did, a claim about the design or maintenance of a City street is a claim against the City of Los Angeles, and it runs on the same six-month clock as a claim against Metro. Those claims follow the same written-claim process described above.
Key points
- An SUV struck the side of a Metro bus at West Nordhoff Street and De Soto Avenue in Chatsworth at about 5 p.m. on September 15, 2026. LAFD reported two deaths and six people taken to hospitals.
- Claims against the SUV driver run on the two-year deadline in Code of Civil Procedure 335.1. Any claim involving Metro requires a written government claim within six months under Government Code 911.2, by March 15, 2027.
- Bus passengers almost never share fault. Get examined this week, keep your records, and do not give a recorded statement to an insurer before you know the extent of your injuries.
- Families of the two people who died may have wrongful death and survival claims under Code of Civil Procedure 377.60 and 377.30.
- Bus camera footage, dispatch records, vehicle event data and nearby business video are overwritten on short schedules. A written preservation demand should go out within days.
- Just before 7 p.m., a helicopter crashed at 9151 N. Mason Avenue, less than a quarter mile away, according to LAFD and KTLA. The number of people hurt had not been reported when this was written.
Frequently asked questions
I was on the bus and I feel fine. Do I need to do anything?
See a doctor this week anyway and tell them you were in the crash. Injuries from a side impact often surface two or three days later, and a medical record made now documents the connection if symptoms appear. Keep your TAP card record or any other proof that you were aboard.
Does the six-month deadline apply to me if the SUV driver was at fault?
The six-month deadline applies to any claim against Metro, regardless of who was at fault. The claim against the SUV driver runs on the two-year rule. Because the investigation is not finished, the safe course for a passenger is to preserve both claims, which means presenting the Metro claim within six months even if it later turns out to be unnecessary.
The SUV driver’s insurance company called me. What do I say?
You can confirm your name and that you were a passenger, and nothing more. You are not required to give a recorded statement, and it is better not to give one until your injuries are fully known. Tell them a lawyer will be in touch, or simply say that you are not ready to talk.
How do the families of the people who died find out what happened?
The LAPD Valley Traffic Division report will be the official account, and fatal crash reports take longer than routine ones. In the meantime, a written request to Metro for the onboard video and dispatch records, and to nearby businesses for their camera footage, preserves the evidence the family will need. Those requests should be made within days, not weeks.
If you or a member of your family was on the Metro bus or in the SUV at Nordhoff and De Soto on September 15, call Manoukian Law Firm at (818) 818-5031 or reach us through our contact page. Our office is in Chatsworth, about two miles from the intersection. We speak English, Spanish and Armenian. Consultations are free and there is no fee unless we recover for you.
