Emmerdale Helicopter Crash Angers Clutha Families

Emmerdale's helicopter crash storyline has angered the families of the Clutha disaster victims.

A dramatic story unfolding on the ITV soap every night this week will see a helicopter crash through the roof of the village hall in the middle of Pete Barton's wedding to Debbie Dingle, and at least one major cast member will be killed off.

The plotline has been compared to the 2013 disaster when a police helicopter crashed into the Clutha Vaults pub in Glasgow, killing 10 people.

An online petition on change.org has been set up by support group the Clutha Trust, appealing to Emmerdale producer Kate Oates not to air the episodes, and has already gained more than 900 signatures.

The petition says: "Show some respect to the Clutha Disaster victims and families by not running a storyline about a helicopter crash on Emmerdale.

"It is completely disrespectful and insensitive to even consider using a similar storyline in order to boost ratings for a soap.''

Ms Oates told a press conference last week that she and other soap bosses carefully considered the storyline in light of the Clutha disaster.

She said: "It was something that we considered because obviously our intention is always to entertain people, to give them a good story, to thrill them, to upset them in certain kinds of ways sometimes, but it would never be our intention to mimic something like that.

"So we kept it very deliberately far apart. It's not something we were concerned about because we made the decision very carefully.''