The Apprentice star and Sun columnist Katie Hopkins has apologised after offending social media users with an apparent joke following the Glasgow helicopter crash.

Several Facebook groups were formed in protest and more than 38,000 people signed an online petition calling for Hopkins to be banned from TV after she tweeted on Saturday: "Life expectancy in Scotland based 07/08 birth is 59.5. Goodness me. That lot will do anything to avoid working until retirement."

The petition said: "On the 30th of November 2013, Scotland was still in shock and trying to come to terms with a horrible crash that took the lives of innocent people. Within 24 hours of this happening Katie Hopkins posted vile remarks on Twitter about how long the people of Scotland live for.

"This is unacceptable and distressing to those who lost friends and family.

"We the undersigned are sick and tired of ITV and Channel 5 giving her airtime and want her banned from all TV shows on your channels such as This Morning and The Wright Stuff.

"This woman is nothing more than an attention seeker who does not deserve to be a celebrity."

Consultant Julie Hendry tweeted: "@leicspolice I'd like to report this racist and insensitive comment from supposed media professional @KTHopkins."

Hopkins, who has almost 82,000 Twitter followers, appeared to make matters worse by retweeting criticism of her, tweeting the following day: "Am told I am the Biggest Bitch in Britain. Following Independence I will only be the Biggest Bitch in England. Always a positive if you look." She added: "Yikes, I am being reported to Channel 4 and the BBC. In a moment I will forced to read the Labour manifesto and subscribe to the Guardian."

She later jokingly tweeted: "There appear to be a number of conflicting petitions out there to have me hung and quartered. Please do feel free to sign them all. PC tastic."

However, on Monday she tweeted, linking to a Scottish NHS document: "My tweet on Scotland was directly related to this article: I apologise to those I offended. It was poor timing."

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• The headline on this article was amended on 3 December 2013 to better reflect the content of the article.