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<\/a><\/p>\nPublished On 14 Jun 202614 Jun 2026<\/p>\n
Two helicopters have collided in mid-air over the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro, killing all six people on board, local authorities said.<\/p>\n
Officials have launched an investigation into the cause of Sunday morning\u2019s crash over a western suburb of the city called Recreio dos Bandeirantes.<\/p>\n
Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list<\/p>\n
Firefighters said the helicopters collided before plummeting into the parking lot of an electric car dealership, setting about 20 vehicles on fire.<\/p>\n
Fire services spokesman Fabio Contreiras said the blaze was difficult to extinguish because of toxic gases released by lithium-ion batteries in the electric vehicles.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen this type of battery catches fire, it releases highly toxic gases and intensifies both the temperature and severity of the blaze,\u201d Contreiras said.<\/p>\n
\u201cExtinguishing a fire in one of these vehicles requires three to four times the amount of water needed for a standard car fire.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"People](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/reuters_6a2f0696-1781466774.jpg\")
People gather near charred vehicles following the crash [Ricardo Moraes\/Reuters]<\/p>\n
He added that the surrounding area was densely populated and that the death toll would have been far higher had the helicopters not crashed into the car park.<\/p>\n
Contreiras said rescue workers had discovered one helicopter in flames among the electric cars, with five victims inside. A second helicopter, found about 100m (328 feet) away, was carrying only the pilot, who also died.<\/p>\n
Debris from the helicopters was found hundreds of metres from the crash site. Footage shared online showed a thick plume of smoke rising from the car park into the sky.<\/p>\n
Contreiras said authorities would need to review recordings of the incident before the cause of the crash could be confirmed.<\/p>\n
Helicopter crashes are common in Brazil.<\/p>\n
According to statistics from the Center for Investigation and Prevention of Aeronautical Accidents (CENIPA), there had been 84 aircraft accidents in 2026 prior to Sunday\u2019s crash.<\/p>\n
![\"Women](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/reuters_6a2f06ee-1781466862.jpg\")
Women embrace following the deadly incident in Rio de Janeiro [Ricardo Moraes\/Reuters]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two helicopters collided in midair before crashing into car park of electric vehicle dealership, fire service says. Published…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":736930,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[64,63,73799,3148,11308,134,75,5315,2186,44,16861],"class_list":["post-736929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-automotive-industry","tag-aviation","tag-brazil","tag-entertainment","tag-environment","tag-investigation","tag-latin-america","tag-news","tag-transport"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/736929","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=736929"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/736929\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/736930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=736929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=736929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=736929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}