Crash of copters that claimed 10 is latest tied to TV shows

The deaths of 10 people during the filming of a reality TV show in Argentina on Monday has drawn new attention to recurring safety issues for an entertainment genre that has suffered a number of fatal accidents in recent years.

The collision of two helicopters in La Rioja province killed two French Olympians and a prominent French sailor, as well as members of the show’s production team. They were filming a “Survivor”-like French reality show called “Dropped” at the time.

The fatal accident, which has dominated French media and prompted an outpouring of condolences for the well-known athletes, has a death toll that stands out among recent incidents.

In 2013, a helicopter crash in a remote area of Los Angeles County killed three people during filming for a Discovery Channel reality show.

That crash was the worst film set accident in California since the 1982 deaths of actor Vic Morrow and two children, who were killed in a helicopter crash while filming “Twilight Zone: The Movie.”

In February 2012, a co-executive producer was seriously injured after being thrown from a boat into a murky river while filming “Bamazon,” a series for the History Channel about out-of-work Alabama construction workers mining for gold in a rain forest in Guyana. And in August, an employee of the long-running reality show “Cops” was accidentally shot and killed by police officers during a taping in Omaha. The cameraman was struck while trying to film a robbery.

Safety questions have been raised about feature film sets as well. Last year, a freight train in Georgia plowed into crew members filming “Midnight Rider,” a movie about rock musician Gregg Allman. The crash left a production assistant dead. The film’s director, Randall Miller, pleaded guilty this week to charges that included manslaughter and criminal trespassing.

Many safety mishaps on sets go unreported because crew members sign nondisclosure agreements and fear being blacklisted if they file lawsuits. Record-keeping can be muddled by the fact that many of the shows are nonunion, and workers are often classified as independent contractors. The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration tracks only serious accidents involving employees and has no jurisdiction if incidents occur in foreign countries.

Judicial authorities in Paris have opened an involuntary manslaughter investigation into Monday’s crash, which is common in fatal incidents involving French citizens abroad, according to Agence France-Presse. Adventure Line Productions was producing the show.

Nonce Paolini, chairman and chief executive of France’s TF1, which airs the show, expressed shock about the accident in a statement. In France, TF1 is among the most popular stations in the country with 8.5 million viewers who watch a range of programming, including news, sports and films, according to 2014 audience ratings. The show “Dropped” focuses on celebrities being blindfolded and dropped in remote locations around the world.

“We are in shock and really very, very, very, very sad,” he said.

“It’s a hard ordeal for these families and it’s a hard ordeal for all of us,” he said. “You know this job, we do this to bring pleasure to people.”

The cause of the collision was not immediately known, but provincial officials said weather was not believed to be a factor.

“An explosion occurred, and it’s believed that they must have collided,” La Rioja’s secretary of security, Cesar Angulo, told reporters.

Amateur footage shared by Argentine media showed what appeared to be the two helicopters flying side by side, then one veers into the path of the other and both plummet to the ground.

The bodies were recovered Tuesday from the charred wreckage near Villa Castelli, about 700 miles northwest of the capital, Buenos Aires. They included two Olympic medalists, swimmer Camille Muffat and boxer Alexis Vastine, a world-class sailor, Florence Arthaud, the two pilots and five members of the production crew.

It was the second time in two years that a television program produced by Adventure Line Productions has been hit by fatalities. In 2013, a 25-year-old contestant on the endurance show “Koh-Lanta” died of an apparent heart attack during filming in Cambodia. The doctor charged with looking after the contestants reportedly committed suicide soon after.