A British paraplegic adventurer was being filmed for an Apple Vision Pro immersive video series during a fatal aircraft crash in the Jordanian desert in July 2024, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reports.
Claire Lomas became internationally recognized in 2012 when she became the first person to complete the London Marathon using a robotic exoskeleton suit, five years after being paralyzed from the waist down in a horse-riding accident. Apple was apparently working with London-based Atlantic Studios to film Lomas for its Apple Immersive Video series called Adventure. A camera system was mounted on the plane itself, and Lomas was actively being recorded when the crash occurred. Lomas died from her injuries within weeks of the crash at the age of 44.
The planned episode was set to showcase multiple Jordanian landmarks, including the Wadi Rum valley and the ancient city of Petra. The original release date for was sometime in 2025. Apple spent millions of dollars per episode on the series, with Atlantic producing and Apple distributing.
People involved with the production say there were broader safety concerns during the making of the Adventure series, including crews working longer hours than staff felt was safe, filming in harsh climates, and operating equipment in conditions the crew had limited training for. Staffers reportedly raised these concerns with their superiors at Apple, which in response sent a health and safety representative to work periodically alongside production staff. There is no record of other major injuries tied to the series.
Apple and Atlantic continued working together after the crash; a Colorado episode was filmed in August 2024. Apple has released five Adventure episodes to date, featuring athletes highlining 3,000 feet in the air, swimming under Arctic ice, parkouring across Paris, cliff diving in Spain, and racing cars in Colorado. No new episodes have been published since last year.
The Adventure series sits within Apple's broader Apple Immersive Video offering for the Vision Pro, which Apple describes as a "180-degree, 3D 8K recording format captured with Spatial Audio." The format is one of the headset's primary selling points and is used in in-store demonstrations of the $3,499 device.
