A pilot was killed in Australia February 14 when a helicopter crashed while working on a bush fire southeast of Pipers Brook, Tasmania. The accident was reported to the police and emergency services at about 3:20 p.m. The pilot was the only person on board.
From the Australian Broadcasting Corporation:
Tasmania Fire Service Acting Deputy Chief Jeff Harper said the northern Tasmanian man was an experienced pilot who had been assisting water-bombing activities as a subcontractor.
Mr. Harper said it was a tragic incident, and that the man had worked on multiple Tasmanian fires in the past.
Firefighting aircraft were grounded after the helicopter crash, and will all be assessed overnight before being deployed again.
The Tasmania Police said the pilot’s next of kin has been notified.
Since it started several days ago the fire has burned 1,660Ha (4,100 acres). Helicopters, fixed wing aircraft, heavy machinery, and firefighters on the ground have been working to control the blaze. A number of forestry plantations have been impacted and one structure has been destroyed.
The ABC reported that the bushfire had resulted from a registered burn that got away from the “very remorseful” owner, and it had been deemed accidental.
The Tasmania Police is asking that anyone with information who may have seen the helicopter near Pipers Brook just before the crash should call Launceston Police on 131444 or report it to Crime Stoppers on 1800333000 or crimestopperstas.com.au. Information can be provided anonymously.
On January 23, 2020 the three crewmembers of an EC-130Q, Air Tanker 134, were killed when the aircraft crashed while working on a fire in New South Wales.
Fire Aviation sends out our sincere condolences to the family, friends, and coworkers of the deceased pilot.
The make and model of the helicopter has not been released.
The National Transportation Safety Board has released their factual report on the crash of an AS350 helicopter that occurred March 27, 2019 during operations on a prescribed fire in Texas. Three people were on board, a pilot and two firefighters. The surviving firefighter and pilot were able to exit the helicopter; however, the second firefighter was partially ejected and sustained fatal injuries. The pilot suffered serious injuries and the surviving firefighter’s injuries were minor. The two injured personnel were transported to a hospital in stable condition after rescuers extracted them from the wreckage using jaws and air bags.
Daniel J. Laird. Tahoe National Forest photo.
The firefighter killed was Daniel Laird, a Captain on the Tahoe Helitack crew in California. He left behind a wife and young daughter.
Mr. Laird was a U.S. Forest Service employee who, along with the other firefighter and the pilot, were on an aerial ignition mission on the Sam Houston National Forest. Their equipment was dropping plastic spheres that burst into flame after hitting the ground, helping to ignite the prescribed fire. The ship came to rest outside the active area of the prescribed fire and there was no additional fire caused by the crash.
The pilot and surviving crew member reported that after completing the application of plastic spheres they began flying back to the staging area when the engine lost total power.
The March 27, 2019 helicopter crash in Texas. Photo by Sgt. Erik Burse/Texas Department of Public Safety.
Most NTSB accident reports are fairly straightforward, but this report, due to the way it is written, still leaves a small amount of doubt about the cause of the engine failure. However, signs point toward a loose fuel line.
“The fuel line between the firewall and hydro-mechanical unit (HMU) was loose and the required safety wire was not installed,” it says, and no other discrepancies were found. It does not say if the fuel line was loose enough to cause the engine to lose power.
From the NTSB report:
Federal Aviation Administration inspectors from the Houston Flight Standards District Office interviewed Mountain Air’s Director of Maintenance, who stated that on February 14, 2019, the USFS requested to validate the helicopter’s weight and balance. The helicopter was defueled, which involved disconnecting the main fuel line. After the weight and balance were verified, the main fuel line was reconnected. The director of maintenance asked another mechanic to verify that the fuel lines were reconnected, which was reportedly accomplished. The mechanic that accomplished the work informed the operator that he “was confident” that he torqued and secured the line. There was no other maintenance work which involved opening the fuel line after that day. On February 23, 2019, the helicopter’s engine would not light, and the engine’s igniters and/or igniter box was replaced. A maintenance records review found that the helicopter flew about 24.9 hours after the weight and balance was conducted on February 14, 2019.
On March 25, 2019, the pilot reported to management that the fuel pressure light had “flickered” during a flight “a few days before;” the pilot turned on the fuel boost pump, turned it off, and the light never reappeared. The pilot was informed to monitor the situation and report if it occurred again.
Following the accident, the digital engine control unit (DECU) was removed and sent to the manufacturer for data download. On April 11, 2019, the DECU was downloaded under the auspices of the FAA. The last recorded fault was a “P3 drift or engine flame out.”
The helicopter, N818MC, was owned Mountain Air Helicopters, Inc. The company has five other helicopters and a Cessna 414A registered with the FAA.
In 2015 two were killed in Mississippi under similar circumstances on a prescribed fire when engine failure brought down a helicopter conducting aerial ignition operations. A third person suffered serious injuries.
The helicopter involved in the March 30, 2015 incident in Mississippi, N50KH, is shown with doors removed and Pilot and PSD operator positions visible.
Our take
Flying low and slow in a single-engine helicopter while igniting fire below the aircraft is obviously very, very dangerous. These three fatalities offer very compelling justification for using drones for aerial ignition instead of manned aircraft.
(Update Sept. 27, 2021: CBS has what looks like the entire transcript of the piece that aired Sunday night.)
Sunday September 26 at 7 p.m. EDT 60 minutes will broadcast a piece about the very large helicopters being used in Southern California this year. They interview Brian Fennessy, Chief of the Orange County Fire Authority about the Quick Reaction Force that has been partially financed with nearly $18 million from Southern California Edison since June 15 this year.
This group of helicopters includes two 3,000-gallon Boeing CH-47D Chinooks based in Los Angeles and Orange Counties, a Sikorsky S-61 with a 1,000-gallon tank in Ventura County, and a Sikorsky S-76 to provide intelligence, evaluate effectiveness of drops, and identify targets with a laser designator. They are all crewed 24/7 and can hover refill with water or retardant at night assisting firefighters whenever they are needed. The helicopters are operated by Coulson Aviation and have either internal or belly tanks.
On August 18 they were dispatched to assist on the Caldor Fire, working out of Amador County Airport, also known as Westover Field.
Chief Fennessy believes in prompt, aggressive, initial attack of fires.
Reporter Bill Whitaker said to the Chief, “If somebody calls 911 you hit it with everything you’ve got. You knock it out.”
“In case of fire break glass!” the chief replied.
This is not the first time a privately owned Chinook has been used in California. In 2020 one operated by Coulson Aviation worked under an 83-day 24/7 contract in collaboration with Southern California Edison (SCE) and the Orange County Fire Authority (OCFA). Other Chinook operators used on fires that do not fly at night include the California National Guard, Billings Flying Service, Helimax, and Columbia.
The video below is a preview of the Sunday program.
Below is an excerpt from a CBS article about the helicopters:
“[Chief Fennessy said] the ability to lay retardant line, to continue to drop fire retardant after sundown, that’s a first,” he tells Whitaker. And there’s an added advantage: the fires usually die down at night because of decreased wind and increased humidity.
Wayne Coulson, the CEO of Coulson Aviation, is a pioneer in night firefighting. His company built the fleet with its specially designed tanks that carry either water or retardant. Computers control the tank’s doors, opening and closing at precise GPS locations.
“We can fly the aircraft to those GPS points and the doors will automatically open and close between those points,” Coulson says.
The FAA reported that the helicopter that went into Lake Shastiana July 7 was a Bell 212, N911KW registered to Rogers Helicopters.
Their very brief preliminary report says, “Aircraft submerged during water operations from Lake Shastina, Weed, CA.”
The report said there were no injuries.
A Bell 212, N911KW registered to Rogers Helicopters, at the Detwiler Fire near Mariposa, California, July 27, 2017. CAL FIRE photo.
Updated at 6:58 p.m. PDT July 7, 2021
Lava Fire, 6:02 p.m. PDT July 7, 2021.
This article first appeared on Fire Aviation.
The Incident Management Team on the Lava Fire in Northern California announced Wednesday afternoon, July 7, that a helicopter working on the fire performed an emergency landing into Lake Shastina in the afternoon due to unknown reasons. The pilot was able to swim/walk away and was being assessed. There were no other passengers on board.
The 25,000-acre Lava Fire is three miles east of Weed, California on the northern slopes of Mt. Shasta. It has been burning since June 24, 2021.
The pilot of a helicopter that crashed while fighting a fire in Alberta, Canada was killed when the Bell 212 went down Monday evening. It occurred on a fire near the community of Evansburg. The body of the pilot, the only person on board, was recovered Monday.
The pilot’s family has been notified.
From CBC news:
Emergency crews were called to the scene around 6:30 p.m. after RCMP received a 911 call reporting the crash. Evansburg RCMP, EMS, firefighters and Alberta Wildfire responded to the site in a remote area west of Highway 22 and north of Highway 16 in Yellowhead County.
The location is not accessible by road and police were brought to the scene by aircraft.
Logan said the terrain of the remote crash site was “difficult” but witness accounts helped first responders narrow their search for the wreckage.
“It wasn’t an exhaustive search because many eyewitnesses saw the helicopter go down,” Fraser said.
RCMP are cooperating with Transportation Safety Board (TSB) investigators who are taking charge of the investigation, Logan said.
Our sincere condolences go out to the pilot’s family, friends, and co-workers.
Three counties in Southern California will be boosting their aerial firefighting capability this year with each adding one large contractor-owned helicopter.
Ventura, Los Angeles, and Orange counties each have their own fleets of helicopters that can be used for firefighting and search and rescue. But in Los Angeles and Orange Counties, the 3,000-gallon Boeing CH-47D Chinooks they will add this year can carry three to eight times the loads of their FireHawks, UH-1H’s, and Bell 412EP’s.
Ventura, Los Angeles, and Orange Counties will be contracting for large helicopters this year.
Ventura County has arranged to add a Sikorsky S-61 with a 1,000-gallon tank. It will supplement their UH-1’s and the new-to-them Firehawk that just returned from Colorado after being upgraded to Firehawk status with a new 1,000-gallon belly tank.
Orange County will also have a Sikorsky S-76 to provide intelligence, evaluate effectiveness of drops, and identify targets with a laser designator.
Coulson S-76 and S-61, L to R. Coulson photo.
The three counties will be calling this a “Quick Reaction Force Program.”
All four of these aircraft are being supplied by Coulson Aviation and will be staffed 24/7, capable of flying and dropping water on wildfires at night. They can also perform a maneuver that few helicopters have done in recent decades — refill their tanks while hovering over a water source at night. That is common, of course, during daylight, but rarely done in darkness using night-vision goggles.
The aircraft will be on contract starting June 15 ranging from 150 to 180 days.
Much of the funding for the helicopters is being supplied by Southern California Edison (SCE), expanding their program which supplied one or two helicopters based in Orange County in 2019 and 2020. In those years SCE paid the daily availability costs and when it was used on fires the hourly fees were covered by the jurisdiction in which the fire occurred.
In 2020 SCE and the Orange County Fire Authority (OCFA) leased a CH-47D Chinook from Coulson. The night-flying helicopter was stationed at the Los Alamitos Joint Forces Training Base in Orange County on a 24/7 schedule.
In 2019 the OCFA also had an arrangement with SCE for a 24/7 night flying helicopter. In that case Coulson supplied an S-61 capable of 1,000 gallons and a Sikorsky S-76. The S-76 was not leased in 2020 because it was going through an avionics upgrade getting ready for fighting fire in the upcoming Australian summer, but it will be part of the Quick Reaction Force Program in 2021.
It is likely that these and other helicopters will occasionally make use of the 69Bravo Helistop that is being upgraded with four metal 8,000-gallon automatically refilling water tanks. Designed to efficiently refill helicopters’ buckets or tanks, it is located on one of the highest peaks in the Topanga area of the Santa Monica Mountains in Los Angeles County.
The Chinook, Firehawk, and S-61 can get to and from water sources quickly cruising at 140 to 160 mph, while the S-76 with the pedal to the metal tops out at 178 mph.
Coulson Chinooks being unloaded at Houston after completing their firefighting contracts in South America. Coulson photo, May, 2021.
