Six people were killed on Sunday when two helicopters collided in the air and crashed in Recreio dos Bandeirantes, in the southwest zone of Rio de Janeiro. Among the dead was Oliver Tree, the 32-year-old American singer, and Gaspar Prim, known as Gaspi, according to police in Rio de Janeiro.
Five of the victims were in one helicopter, while the only person aboard the other aircraft was its pilot, Charles Marsillac. The crash also burned at least 20 vehicles after the helicopters came down in a vehicle lot on Avenida das Américas, turning a busy stretch of the city into an emergency scene just after 8:59 a.m.
Authorities said the two aircraft involved were registered as PP-MAC and PR-DJJ, and investigators from SERIPA III were activated by the Brazilian Air Force for the initial response. The Civil Police said the case remains open at the 42nd DP in Recreio dos Bandeirantes as teams work to establish why the helicopters met in midair.
There is still a gap at the center of the story: what caused the collision has not been explained. One account places the wreckage in a vehicle yard, while another says the land was a car lot rented by BYD, but both descriptions point to the same violent impact and the same fire that followed when one helicopter exploded on hitting the ground.
Tree was in Rio de Janeiro during a world tour, after a show in São Paulo on June 6 and ahead of a planned concert in Lisbon on July 1. Gaspi had also gained wider international attention in 2025 after appearing in La Velada del Año V in Seville, but on Sunday the story was not about their careers. It was about a low-altitude collision that killed six people and left investigators searching for the chain of events in the sky over Rio.
