Argentine recovery teams arrived on Tuesday at the site of a helicopter collision to recover the bodies of 10 people, including French sports stars participating in a reality TV show.
Aviation experts made it to the crash site in a mountainous area northwest of Buenos Aires in the early hours, said Judge Virginia Illanes Bordon.
"In a short while we will begin the task of recovery of the bodies," she told TN News.
News of the crash and the loss of star athletes cast France into mourning.
Among those aboard the helicopters and presumed dead were champion sailor Florence Arthaud, Olympic gold medalist swimmer Camille Muffat and Olympic boxer Alexis Vastine.
They were taking part in the filming of the survival series "Dropped" when two helicopters collided in mid-air, apparently while filming the show near the town of Villa Castilla in Argentina's La Rioja province.
Eight French nationals and the two Argentine pilots were killed, a police source said.
Provincial spokesman Horacio Alarcon said the weather conditions were good and the cause of the crash was unknown.
The provincial government later said they included Arthaud, 57, Muffat, 25, and Vastine, 28.
The series, which was to air on French television channel TF1, involved eight athletes being dropped into inhospitable environments for an adventure- and survival-themed reality show.
The provincial government said a cast and crew of around 80 people, mostly French nationals, had descended on the area in recent days to film the series.
Shooting began in late February in Ushuaia, at the southern tip of South America in the glacial landscape of Patagonia.
It then moved to La Rioja, whose scenic mountain landscapes are popular with tourists. The place where the crash occurred is around 1,100 kilometers (700 miles) north of Buenos Aires.
Police and firefighters were still working to recover the victims' bodies when night fell, using floodlights to illuminate the area, a police source told AFP.
Officials from the air force, which is in charge of investigating air accidents in Argentina, were en route to the scene. "It's been four hours since the collision and (the wreckage) is still on fire. There's smoke rising from the helicopters," said a police source at the scene.
Tuesday 10 March 2015
http://sports.ndtv.com/othersports/news/238800-french-sports-stars-among-10-killed-in-argentine-helicopter-crash
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