Today, December 7, 2010, the National Transportation Safety Board conducted a Board Meeting about the August 5, 2008 crash of the Sikorsky S-61N helicopter on the Iron Complex fire near Weaverville in northern California that killed nine firefighters. The meeting was broadcast on a live webcast which we watched. The notes below were taken in real time during the webcast. It was not possible to pause or “rewind”, so there are probably errors and omissions, for which we apologize in advance. But we did the best we could, with limited multi-tasking and typing skills.
We originally covered some of the details of the NTSB’s Factual Report on the crash HERE. As we said then, one of the most startling facts the NTSB discovered is this:
The NTSB estimated that the actual empty weight of the helicopter was 13,845 pounds, while Carson Helicopters stated in their contract proposal that the weight was 12,013 pounds. For the purpose of load calculations on the day of the crash, the pilot assumed the weight to be 12,408 pounds, which was 1,437 pounds less than the actual weight estimated by the NTSB.
More information:
- The presentations made during the meeting can be found on the NTSB web site HERE. They may only be available for three months.
- The Accident Docket, a list of NTSB documents related to the accident, can be found HERE.
- A recorded version of the webcast is now available HERE on the NTSB site. It may only be available there for three months.
- The Conclusions, Probable Causes, and Recommendations. (This link takes you to a copy of the document that we placed on Wildfire Today’s Documents page.)
After the meeting the NTSB issued a press release. We included it at the bottom of this article.
The meeting was held in Washington, DC, and the times shown below are Eastern Time. Below, the most recent updates are at the top.
4:23 – After a closing summary statement by Chairman Hersman, the board adjourned.
4:15 – Robert Sumwalt proposed, and the Board voted enthusiastically to approve, that the report be amended to include “Carson Helicopter, Inc.” in the title. During the meeting today, there was severe criticism of Carson, especially for their “intentional wrong-doing”. Some family members of the crash victims in the audience (which was never shown on camera) applauded the work of the investigative staff. Zoë (Zoëy) Keliher received special recognition for the investigative work that she performed. Other investigators, when they uncovered a surprising or extremely important fact, were said to have had a “Zoëy Moment”.
4:09 – Chairman Hersman said the Public Use area of aircraft operations, under which fire aviation falls, is an “orphan” in the regulatory system. She said the FAA needs to recognize and correct this. “We don’t want to investigate any more crashes like this”, she said.
3:58 – While they are reading the list, HERE is a link to a page that lists, and has photos of, the five members of the NTSB. Robert Sumwalt spoke more, and asked more questions, than the other four members. But they all were very professional, knowledgeable, brought up good points, and asked excellent questions of the investigators and witnesses.
3:53 – They just finished reading a list of probable causes, and now are reading 20+ recommendations. I can’t type that fast, but we’ll attempt to get a written copy.
3:48 – Robert Sumtwalt faulted the USFS for their lack of oversight before the accident, but praised them for the actions they took afterwards.
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