World News

Helicopter Collision In Argentina Kills French Olympic Athletes

Argentina Country

A couple of helicopters carrying a team of French sports stars, with Olympic athletes amongst them, collided with one another while filming a reality show in a remote part of Argentina.

CBC reported that 10 people were killed in the helicopter crash.

Olympic gold medallist Camille Muffat was amongst the dead, but the late gold medal swimmer wasn’t the only star athlete aboard, as reports indicated that Olympic boxer Alexis Vastine and sailor Florence Arthaud were also killed in the accident.

The midair collision occurred on Monday around 5:10 p.m. local time near Villa Castelli, which is roughly 1,170 kilometers northwest of Buenos Aires in the La Rioja province.

Cesar Angulo, La Rioja Secretary of Security, indicated to TN television that all of the people on board, including the two Argentine pilots, were killed in the tragic collision.

The recently deceased include eight French nationals in addition to the two Argentine pilots.

Angulo was quoted as having said that there was “an explosion” and that authorities believed that the two choppers had collided.

An explosion occurred and it’s believed that they collided.

Photographs of the wreckage showed the helicopters on the ground, burning and smoking with onlookers gathered within close proximity.

Parts of the wreckage were still burning hours after the crash, according to Argentine news agency Telam.

Buenos Aires Herald reported that one of the helicopters was owned by the La Rioja government and the other had come from Santiago del Estero.

French President Francois Hollande issued a statement through Liberation in which he expressed his “immense sadness” derived from what he referred to as “the brutal demise” of some of the country’s star athletes.

The victims were identified in the statement as Laurent Sbasnik, Lucie Mei-Dalby, Brice Guilbert, Edouard Gilles, and Volodia Guinard.

The deceased pilots were Roberto Abate and Juan Carlos Castillo.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gO_kf0Dmd_I

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