A two-vehicle crash that injured several crew members on the set of the movie “The Pickup” is being investigated by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the federal agency said on Wednesday.
Amazon MGM Studios said the crash occurred on Saturday but did not provide any details about the injuries. According to two people with direct knowledge of the situation who were not authorized to speak publicly about it, at least a half-dozen people who were inside the vehicles sustained injuries and were transported to a hospital. One person remained hospitalized on Wednesday with a back injury, those people said.
They said that none of the actors in the film, which features Eddie Murphy, Keke Palmer and Pete Davidson, were involved in the crash. An OSHA inspection report said it occurred at a small airport outside Atlanta.
Video of the crash that was obtained by The New York Times shows an armored truck pulling up alongside an S.U.V. before swerving into it. After the collision, both vehicles veer off the road in tandem and drive onto grass, where the armored truck flips on top of the S.U.V.
Both vehicles completely roll over and end up upright but mangled. As a back door of the armored truck swings open, one person inside can be seen lying limp.
The video is a cellphone recording of a monitor playing back the footage of the crash.
Amazon MGM Studios said in a statement that all safety precautions were reviewed before the action sequence and monitored during its filming.
“Unfortunately, the sequence did not go as planned and several members of the crew were injured as a result,” the studio said. “We are still in the process of gathering facts on what happened and why, but first and foremost our thoughts are with those who are recovering.”
The two people with knowledge of the episode said they believed that the vehicles were supposed to hit each other, but that the S.U.V. was supposed to pull away and fall back behind the armored truck. It was not immediately clear whether a vehicle malfunctioned or human error was involved.
Both people also said there was no ambulance on site to immediately tend to the victims.
A separate person with knowledge of the production, who was granted anonymity to discuss details about the crash, said emergency workers and police officers were there. An ambulance was called, but there were differing accounts of how long it took to arrive.
Experts said it was fairly standard practice to have an ambulance on standby for potentially dangerous stunts.
Sean Miller, a spokesman for the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, which represents the crew members involved, said it was aware of the crash and had started an inquiry. Eric Lucero, a spokesman for the Labor Department, said that OSHA had “initiated an investigation” but declined to provide additional information.
A spokesman for the sheriff’s office of Douglas County, Ga., where the crash occurred, did not respond to a request for comment.
Dutch Merrick, a longtime prop master who lives in California, said that with such limited information it was hard to determine what, if anything, went wrong. But he said that the movie industry generally took “very careful precautions for these kinds of rigs and stunts.”
“That’s what makes this an anomaly,” he said. “We do this literally every day in Hollywood.”
