Oliver Tree dies at 32 in helicopter crash in Rio de Janeiro

Oliver Tree was among six people killed when two helicopters collided mid-air over Rio de Janeiro’s Recreio dos Bandeirantes neighborhood on Sunday morning. Brazilian authorities said the aircraft went down in the city’s western and southwestern zone, and the cause of the collision was still under investigation.

Emergency crews were called at 8:59 a.m. local time, according to Brazilian reporting. One helicopter crashed into a car dealership or vehicle yard where electric vehicles were parked, sparking a fire that spread through the site before firefighters extinguished it. Officials said all six people aboard the aircraft died.

The Rio de Janeiro Civil Police identified Oliver Tree Nickell among the victims, according to reports from the scene. Other coverage identified the performer by his stage name, Oliver Tree, the singer behind “Life Goes On” and “Miss You,” whose sharp visual style and genre-crossing sound made him a fixture far beyond conventional pop circles. His audience stretched from streaming platforms and meme culture to alternative radio and festival crowds, giving him a reach that was unusually broad for a young musician.

Reports also said Tree had performed in São Paulo on June 6 as part of an ongoing tour and had Europe dates scheduled for July. That schedule underscored how abruptly the crash cut short a career still moving at full speed across international stages.

The collision added another fatal episode to the long-running safety concerns around helicopter traffic over dense urban areas. In Recreio dos Bandeirantes, the crash landed not only on aircraft occupants but also inside a commercial vehicle yard, turning a transportation accident into a street-level fire emergency in a populated part of Rio.