BUENOS AIRES/PARIS – France on Tuesday mourned one of the deadliest accidents in reality television, with eight French nationals, including some of the country’s top athletes, among ten killed in a helicopter collision.
Olympic medalist swimmer Camille Muffat, 25, former boxer and Olympic medalist Alexis Vastine, 28, and yachtswoman Florence Arthaud, 57, were among those killed.
They died alongside five television crew members and two Argentine pilots in northern Argentina.
The collision occurred as the aircraft were taking off in La Rioja, around 1,000 kilometres west of Buenos Aires, during the production of a reality show called “Dropped’’.
Footage from the crash showed smoke rising from crushed metal structures emitting large flames.
The show was produced by channel TF1 and Adventure Line Productions (ALP), which planned to drop eight athletes into nature and document their survival strategies, according to French media.
The current filming was set to air during the summer.
“All of the ALP teams are deeply affected and share the pain of the families and relatives with whom they are linked.
“We are in contact with the production team on site, and with the French and Argentine authorities,’’ ALP president Franck Firmin-Guion said in a statement.
ALP was embroiled in controversy in 2013 after a 25-year-old contestant on another reality show died of a heart attack on set.
This was followed by the suicide of the staff doctor who was partially blamed for the death.
In Argentina, the two helicopters were only 400 metres away from their take-off point when they crashed to the ground.
Reports said weather conditions were good at the time of the collision.
According to La Nacion newspaper, at least one of the helicopters had been produced by Eurocopter, which belongs to Airbus.
“The sudden death of our compatriots is an immense sadness,’’ French President Francois Hollande said in a statement on Tuesday.
“The President of the Republic expresses his condolences to the families close to the victims and assures them of complete solidarity.’’
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Patrick Kanner and Thierry Bawler, the Minister of Youth Sports and State Sports Secretary respectively, issued a joint statement in which they hailed the “champions’’ of French sport.
“This tragedy moves the entire nation and affects especially all athletes. The minister and the secretary join in the grief of the families of the victims and their relatives,’’ the statement read.
Muffat, from the French city of Nice, was an Olympic gold medalist in the 400-metre freestyle at the 2012 games in London.
She also took silver in the 200-metre freestyle and bronze in the 4×200-metre freestyle relay during the same year.
Arthaud, known as the fiancee of the Atlantic, was considered one of the world’s most talented sailors, winning the transatlantic single-handed yacht race the Route du Rhum in 1990.
She was from Bologne-Bilancourt.
Vastine was a bronze medalist in boxing, welterweight division, during the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing.
According to the sports minister, he was preparing to compete in Rio de Janeiro in 2016.
Another of the show’s contestants, Sylvain Wiltord, a former footballer for the national team and player for the British club Arsenal, had recently left the show and returned to France.
“I am sad for my friends, I am trembling, I am horrified, I have no words. I am speechless,’’ Wiltord tweeted.
According to French media, other participants in the reality show who were not in the helicopter collision include swimmer Alain Bernard, cyclist Jeannie Longo, snowboarder Anne-Flore Marxer and skater Philippe Candeloro.(dpa/NAN)
