On October 7, 2014 Laurence Crabtree, the Forest Supervisor for the Eldorado National Forest, issued a “Preliminary (24-hour) Briefing” about the air attack aircraft that ended up off the runway at Nevada County Airport near Grass Valley, California three days earlier. The document has very little information:
Aero Commander 690B veered off the runway at approximately 1343 hours. The ship had been performing an aerial supervision mission on the King Fire, located on the Eldorado National Forest. There were three people onboard, the pilot, an Air Tactical Group Supervisor (ATGS) and an ATGS trainee. The National Safety Transportation Board (NTSB) classified this event as an accident on October 6, 2014 at 10:00 AM. The Forest Service has assigned an investigation team to work in collaboration with the NTSB.
It is obvious that the USFS can’t say a lot about the official cause of an accident three days after the incident, but in a document that took three days to prepare, many people would appreciate a little more information, including indisputable facts such as injuries, the weather, obvious mechanical malfunctions such as a blown tire or collapsed landing gear, or did it occur on takeoff, landing, or taxiing.
