Unlikely that crash will ground all tankers

SACRAMENTO, Calif. – National forest officials were optimistic Friday that early findings in the fatal crash of an air tanker in Northern California would not ground the federal firefighting air fleet this summer, a spokesman said.

An initial review of the fiery crash that killed three pilots Wednesday in the rugged mountains of the Lassen National Forest found all the wreckage within a two-acre burn zone, said Paul Schlamm, a National Transportation Safety Board spokesman.

That observation renewed confidence in plans by federal firefighting officials to return more air tankers to the skies for the West’s wildfire season, said Matt Mathes, a U.S. Forest Service spokesman.

“At first glance, it sounds as if there was not a structural problem in the air,” Mathes said. “This is certainly a promising development. We’re going to wait for more information as the investigation proceeds, but we are cautiously optimistic.”

Last May, the U.S. Forest Service and the Department of the Interior terminated contracts for 33 large air tankers, citing concerns with public safety after two different types of air tankers broke up in midair in 2002.

But the government agreed to reinstate some planes after extensive testing at the urging of air tanker contractors led by Aero Union Corp. of Chico, which owned the plane that crashed Wednesday and had a good safety record.

The plane, a P-3 Orion built for the Navy in 1966 and flown by an experienced crew, was one of 10 air tankers approved for federal firefighting contracts Monday.

“We put that particular plane through two kinds of tests,” said Mathes. “It has passed every single test we can give it.”

Air tankers are a small part of the federal firefighting air fleet, but are considered indispensable by Western lawmakers who have criticized previous groundings and lobbied hard to bring them back into service during the wildfire season.

More and more, they are being displaced by a much larger fleet of helicopters, which can be more effective, Mathes said.

Helicopters can accurately drop water or fire retardant directly on targets, they don’t have to land to refill and their focused drop can penetrate deeper into forests with greater force.

There are 700 helicopters in the federal fleet, including some that can carry 3,000 gallons of water or fire retardant – the same payload as the largest tankers.

“What’s being lost in all this is that air tankers don’t put fires out,” Mathes said. “What they do is they slow the fire down so the men and women on the ground can get a handle on the fire and get a line around it.”

More than a dozen federal investigators worked at the scene of the crash 120 miles north of Sacramento and reviewed pilot logs and maintenance records at the Chico airport, where the plane had successfully returned from six missions earlier in the day Wednesday.

The NTSB did not reach any early conclusions and had not ruled anything out, Schlamm said.

The Aero Union plane left the airport with 2,500 gallons of water, but it was not clear if it had dropped the water before the crash, he said. In earlier statements, the NTSB said the plane crashed immediately after dropping its load.

Investigators spent the day documenting and diagramming the wreckage area, looking for the so-called four corners of the plane: the nose, tail and wing tips.

In the previous crashes that resulted in the grounding of the tanker fleet, the planes broke apart in midflight, leaving the wings far from the rest of the wreckage.

The company said the crew members killed were all experienced pilots: Brian Bruns, 45, of Minden, Nev.; Paul Cockrell, 52, of Fresno, Calif.; and Thomas Lynch, 41, of Redding, Calif. Lynch was the company’s chief pilot.

Lynch’s wife, Lori, said she worried about her husband from the day she met him and even tried to persuade him to do something else.

“He wanted to be out there on the runways and close to that fire,” Lori Lynch told the Redding Record Searchlight newspaper. “Once you get that in your blood, you can’t get it out.”

Cockrell’s brother, Gary Cockrell, had been killed while piloting an Aero Union air tanker 10 years ago during a collision with a Forest Service plane while they both prepared to land at a Southern California airport after fighting a state park fire.

Three pilots were killed in the crash, which was the last tragedy involving Aero Union.