THE daughter of a victim of the Clutha tragedy has slammed soap bosses for running a storyline about a helicopter crashing through the roof of a venue.
Kerry McGhee, whose father Samuel McGhee, 56, was one of 10 people to die in the crash on November 29 2013, signed a petition calling for the Emmerdale storyline to be axed.
As reported on Saturday, the show’s producers said they had considered the Clutha accident when formulating the plot, but decided their events were sufficiently different.
The scenes, which will be aired on ITV from tonight, take place on Pete Barton and Debbie Dingle’s wedding day.
A helicopter the groom has booked to surprise his bride crashes into the roof of the village hall, injuring many of the guests and killing off at least one major cast member.
However, the move has provoked outrage from Glasgow residents, who claim it is a “disgrace”.
Hundreds of people have signed a petition calling for producers to pull the storyline.
Ms McGhee, from Castlemilk, was one of more than 300 people to support the call yesterday.
She said: “I’m signing because my father was killed in this accident and I find it disgusting that people want to use it as a storyline.”
Organisers of the Clutha Trust, which was set up to support young people in music projects, started the petition.
Billy Coyle from the charity said relatives of victims had contacted him due to anxiety about the storyline.
He said: “I’ve had survivors and family members say they are dreading it.
“The producers didn’t even speak to anyone in the Clutha to let them know it was happening.”
Mr Coyle said it was “very insensitive”.
He added: “It was just a week ago we opened the Clutha and it’s still raw.
“A lot of the family members and survivors were sitting there together and that was very brave of them to come back to the Clutha.
“Now this has come along and the families are contacting me to say they don’t know how they’ll cope."
Manager of the bar Andy Crossan, brother of owner Alan, added: “This is very bad taste. It’s just going to open old wounds.”
As well as Mr McGhee, the tragedy claimed the lives of Mark O’Prey, 44, Joe Cusker, 59, John McGarrigle, 57, Gary Arthur, 48, Colin Gibson, 33, Robert Jenkins, 61, as well as pilot David Traill, 51, PC Tony Collins, 43 and PC Kirsty Nelis, 36.
An ITV spokeswoman said: "ITV always considers carefully the content of its programming.
"The helicopter crash circumstances are very different to any real life cases that we are aware of."
Producer of the ITV soap Kate Oates said the Clutha was considered, adding that it "would never be our intention to mimic something like that".
She added: "So we kept it very deliberately far apart."
Some viewers previously criticised the soap when it featured a plotline about a plane crashing on to the village five years after the December 1988 Lockerbie disaster.
The scenes attracted a record 18 million viewers.
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