Shadows over the tragedy: the owner of the Gaspi helicopter accumulated fines for irregularities

By Brittany Solano

The shock over the death of Gaspar Prim Díaz, the young Argentine YouTuber popularly known as Gaspi, only grows as details become known about the circumstances of the accident in Rio de Janeiro. While followers try to process the impact of the loss, the judicial investigation began to put the magnifying glass on a fact that did not go unnoticed: the owner of the helicopter in which the content creator and musician Oliver Tree were traveling was already on the radar of the authorities for administrative failures.

According to information circulating in Brazilian media such as O'Globo, the owner of the aircraft registration PP-MAC, identified as Oswaldo de Luca Filho, had been sanctioned by the National Civil Aviation Agency (ANAC) in July of last year. The cause was not minor: the businessman had refused to present flight logs, accounting documentation and basic statistics that the inspectors demanded of him at the time.

The negligence behind the flight

It's hard not to connect the dots. When a control agency requests documentation and it is systematically denied, the first instinct of any investigator is to ask what they were trying to hide. On that occasion, the ANAC applied a fine of about 8 thousand reais, a figure that, for the magnitude of an air transport, sounds more like a lukewarm call for attention than a sanction that would stop future irregularities.

The tragedy occurred this Sunday, around 9 in the morning. The residents of Recreio dos Bandeirantes, in Rio, woke up to a roar that shook the windows of their houses. Two helicopters, for reasons that are now the subject of expert reports, touched each other in the air and plummeted over the parking lot of an electric car dealership. The fire soon engulfed the vehicles. The columns of black smoke, which could be seen from several kilometers away, were the unmistakable sign that, in that hell of burning metal and batteries, the chances of survival were practically nil.

The last postcard of a trip that ended in tragedy

For many of those who followed Gaspi's irreverent humor, the last photo that circulated on social networks feels like a blow. It was Lucas Vignale, the director who accompanied him on this Brazilian adventure, who uploaded it just a few hours before. Gaspar is seen, sitting on a lounge chair, dressed in a suit that gave him that air of character that he always cultivated, with the sea in the background and a tranquility that today brutally contrasts with the disaster.

In addition to the two of them and the musician Oliver Tree, the fatal toll includes the pilot Alexandre Souza and two other occupants, Lucas Brito Chaves and Charles Marsillac. Lieutenant Colonel Fabio Contreiras, in charge of the emergency operation, was the one who confirmed, with the dry tone of the military, what no one wanted to hear: “Unfortunately there are no survivors.”

An investigation that has just begun

Now, the focus of Brazilian justice will not only be on the mechanics of the crash - whether it was a maneuver error, a technical failure or a combination of both - but on the traceability of the maintenance and the legality of those who operated these ships. That the owner of the device had a history of reluctance towards the control authorities is, at the very least, a key piece in the puzzle.

Meanwhile, in Argentina, the atmosphere in streaming is deeply sad. Gaspi was not just another YouTuber; His style, sometimes controversial, other times absurd, had become a cult phenomenon. The news of the crash in Brazil left an immense void. The pain of the relatives is the only certainty in a case that, as the ANAC's final report progresses, promises to leave many uncomfortable questions about how the skies in the region are really controlled.