Bodies of French Olympians recovered in Argentina air crash

Investigators today recovered all 10 bodies from a remote site in Argentina where helicopters serving a reality TV show apparently collided, killing prominent French athletes and leaving the European nation in mourning.
The helicopters crashed yesterday afternoon near Villa Castelli, about 1,170 kilometers northwest of Buenos Aires, said La Rioja regional Secretary of Security Cesar Angulo. All aboard, eight French nationals and two Argentine pilots, were killed.
Among the dead were Olympic champion swimmer Camille Muffat, Olympic boxer and bronze-medalist Alexis Vastine, and pioneering sailor Florence Arthaud. They had been among the contestants in the reality TV show "Dropped."
The bodies were being transported to the regional capital of La Rioja province, where autopsies would be conducted, Judge Virginia Illanes Bordon told television channel Todo Noticias. Illanes Bordon said the rough terrain made recovering the bodies late Monday impossible.

Television images showed investigators pulling cellphones, papers and other charred, unrecognisable items from the wreckage in dry scrubland of a sparsely populated area along the Andes mountain range that separates Argentina and Chile.
The crash was believed to be one the deadliest incidents yet related to reality TV shows, a sub-genre of which involves taking celebrities and others to far-flung places to face challenges both physical and mental.

French President Francois Hollande expressed "immense sadness" about those who died, and the Paris prosecutor's office opened an investigation into possible involuntary manslaughter, which is to be conducted by a research unit of the French air transport police, a French police official said.

The remaining victims were identified as Laurent Sbasnik, Lucie Mei-Dalby, Volodia Guinard, Brice Guilbert and Edouard Gilles, as well as pilots Juan Carlos Castillo and Roberto Abate.
The wife of Castillo, Cristina Alvarez, told Todo Noticias that her husband was a veteran of the Falklands War and had vast experience flying helicopters, including in places like Antarctica and the Falkland Islands.
Her voice cracking, she said her husband was "extremely happy" because he had recently found out he was going to be a grandfather.
Angulo, the security secretary, said one of the helicopters belonged to La Rioja province and the other to neighboring Santiago del Estero province.

"The helicopter from La Rioja was a Eurocopter with a capacity to hold six people. It appears to have brushed against the other helicopter from Santiago del Estero shortly after takeoff," the statement from the provincial government said.