GTLA AirWatch is the live air-traffic dashboard for Los Angeles County and the surrounding SoCal basin. Every helicopter currently airborne over LA appears on the 3D map in real time, with FAA registration, operator identification, aircraft livery, and live flight trails sourced from ADS-B telemetry. Coverage extends from downtown Los Angeles north through the San Fernando Valley to Ventura County, east to the Inland Empire, and south through Orange County.
The map identifies aircraft from the LAPD Air Support Division, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department (LASD) Aero Bureau, the Los Angeles Fire Department (LAFD) and LA County Fire (LACoFD), the California Highway Patrol (CHP), and the regional news fleets — KTLA Sky5, KNBC NewsChopper 4, KABC AIR7, KCAL Sky9 / KTTV SkyFOX, and CBS News. It also tracks military aircraft including the United States Navy, US Coast Guard, and US Army helicopters that transit LA airspace, plus firefighting heavies like the CAL FIRE Firehawks, LACoFD's Coulson-operated S-61 and CH-47 Helitanker, and air-medical operators including Reach Air Medical Services.
The "Who's hovering here?" feature at gtla.live/here identifies the helicopter directly above the visitor's current location — useful when residents see or hear a helicopter overhead and want to know what it's doing. Common use cases include identifying news-helicopter coverage of breaking events, tracking police-pursuit response, monitoring wildfire firefighting operations during fire season, and following major-incident airspace activity in real time.
Live launch alerts are delivered through the GTLA AirWatch Telegram channel: instant notifications when news helicopters depart their bases, indicating that something newsworthy is unfolding somewhere in Los Angeles.
🚁 26 helicopters over LA right now — 12 circling, 13 passing through.
Neighborhood page: Helicopters over Avalon
No aircraft hovering right now — coverage may have cleared.
A REACH air ambulance, a Eurocopter EC135, went into the ocean just after taking off from the Pebbly Beach heliport near Avalon at about 7:45 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 30, the FAA said. Five people were aboard. Two died: the pilot and a crew member, according to the FAA's preliminary information reported by the AP. Two were taken to hospital. One person, the patient being flown to the mainland, was still missing Thursday morning, LA County Fire said, and the Coast Guard called it an active search, not a recovery. The NTSB is investigating. Officials have not said what caused it. Public flight-tracking data identifies the helicopter as N313RX. GTLA's own recording shows it flying in from the Oceanside area that evening, and its last position at 7:46 p.m., about 175 yards east of the heliport. Sources: FAA statement (faa.gov); AP via 10News, 8:56 a.m. Thursday; NBC Los Angeles, 8:24 a.m.; KTVU, 6:44 a.m.
