French investigators have arrived in Argentina to help determine why two helicopters collided and caught fire, killing three major sports stars, a film crew and two pilots during the shooting of a high-budget, endurance-style reality TV show.
In what was described as the deadliest accident in the history of reality TV, Camille Muffat, the top young swimmer who won three medals at the Olympic Games in 2012; Florence Arthaud, the pioneering yachtswoman; and the boxer Alexis Vastine were among 10 people killed in the rugged western province of La Rioja near the Andes mountains. The crash sparked shock and mourning in France and raised questions about the risks involved in a growing genre of high-adrenaline reality-TV survival shows in which contestants, often celebrities, are taken to far-flung places to face physical and mental challenges against the elements.
The two helicopters collided in mid-air during perfect flying conditions just after take-off from a football pitch while filming the second episode of a new adventure show, Dropped, for France’s biggest private TV station, TF1. The programme, an adaptation of a Swedish format, was to feature an all-star cast of French sporting figures taken blindfolded by helicopter and left in the wilderness to find their way back to civilisation. In total, eight French nationals were killed, including crew members, as well as two Argentinian pilots. There were no survivors.
The crash happened at around 5pm near the town of Villa Castelli, about 700 miles (1,100km) north of the capital Buenos Aires. Mobile-phone footage showed the burning wreckage of the helicopters in dry scrubland of a sparsely populated area along the Andes mountain range that separates Argentina and Chile. Judge Virginia Bordón told local media: “We have no presumption of what happened yet.” A statement from the provincial government said one helicopter appeared to have “brushed against the other”.
One of the helicopters was letting off “explosions that were out of place,” said witness David Ocampo, who was loading his car with grass for his farm animals about 100 metres from where the helicopters fell. “It was like the earth moved when they fell,” he told a local news channel.
Ocampo said the helicopters seemed to be flying “five metres apart” and that from what he saw it looked like “the first one stopped in the air and the other one swerved to try and avoid it but crashed into it”.
He added: “I ran to see if I could help anyone but all I could see was fire, it was all fire, fire. I felt so bad I couldn’t help anyone because of the fire.”
One of the helicopters was piloted by a veteran of the 1982 Falklands War between Britain and Argentina. Juan Carlos Castillo was a highly experienced former pilot of Argentina’s air force with more than 20 Antarctic missions, his wife Cristina Alvarez told TN television news channel. “I understand the crash happened at a very low altitude, under 100 metres,” she said. “It’s very difficult at that height to reestablish [control over] the machine and perform an auto-rotation emergency manoeuvre to land the helicopter without this happening.” Castillo was a regular pilot for reality shows and the Dakar rally, as well as floods and other emergencies in La Rioja, she added.
As part of the show, other famous sporting contestants had been standing blindfolded on the ground a few hundred metres from the crash, waiting for their own helicopter trips. An agent for the French ice-skater Philippe Candeloro told Europe 1 radio: “They were blindfolded and at first they heard a huge noise. Then they ran towards the accident, the helicopters in flames. There was nothing they could do. The absolute horror.”
The three sports stars who were killed had been photographed on their way to film the series, smiling and doing thumbs-up. Muffat, 25, who won gold in the 400-metre freestyle in London, among other medals, had recently retired from swimming to focus on her personal life. Her boyfriend told French TV she had said of the filming: “It was great. She was not forced [to do things]. She was where she wanted to be.”
Alexis Vastine, 28, won a bronze boxing medal at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing and later lost in the quarter finals in London amid a sporting controversy that led him to break down in tears. His 21-year-old sister died in a car crash only two months ago. His father, Alain, an amateur boxing star in the 1980s, told Le Parisien: “I found out about my son’s death when I turned on the TV this morning. When the gendarmes knocked at my door, I already knew. I can’t understand it, take it in or believe it. I keep telling myself it’s not possible. Not us again, for mercy’s sake.”
Florence Arthaud, 57, one of the few female sailing stars, was famous for her fearlessness. She had a brush with death in 2011 when she fell off her boat into the Mediterranean and rescuers whisked her out after she called her mother by mobile phone.
The crash is the second time in two years that a French endurance-reality show produced by the production company ALP for TF1 has been hit by tragedy. In April 2013, during filming for France’s longest-running reality show, the tough desert island challenge Koh-Lanta, a 25-year-old contestant died of a heart attack on the first day of filming in Cambodia. The show’s doctor was later found dead in his hotel room with a suicide note in which he said his name had been sullied by insinuations that not enough was done for the contestant and that he could no longer stand the media pressure.
François Hollande, the French president, led tributes, saying the “brutal” deaths were “an immense sadness”. He said of the sports stars: “They died because, again, they wanted to push the boundaries.”
Sylvain Wiltord, the former France and Arsenal striker, who was another contestant on the show, tweeted: “I am sad for my friends, I’m shaking, I’m horrified, I can’t find the words.”
Je suis triste pour mes amis , je tremble , je suis horrifié , je n'ai pas de mots , je ne veux rien dire #Tristesse #Pleurs #JesuisàParis
— Sylvain Wiltord (@sylwiltord) March 10, 2015
Nonce Paolini, head of TF1, said “It feels like we are living a nightmare.” He said the series was going well and the sportsmen and women were happy to be in it. “It was a beautiful adventure game that has ended in tragedy.”
The Paris prosecutor’s office opened an investigation for possible involuntary manslaughter, which is to be conducted by a research unit of the French air transport police.
After the arrival of investigators, five of the bodies were removed to a morgue in the provincial capital of La Rioja.
