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Former employees of Carson Helicopters indicted over fatal Iron 44 Fire crash

Bill GabbertFebruary 4, 2013November 10, 2020UncategorizedCalifornia, Carson, Iron 44, Iron Complex, Levi Phillips, lodd, Steven Metheny44 Comments

Sikorsky S-61N helicopter operated by Carson

Two former employees of Carson Helicopters are facing 20 years or more in prison for charges related to the crash of a helicopter August 5, 2008 that killed nine people (seven firefighters and two crew members) as it attempted to take off from a remote helispot on the Iron Complex or Iron 44 Fire in northern California.

Last week a federal grand jury in Medford, Oregon indicted Steven Metheny, 42, former Vice President of Carson, and Levi Phillips, 45, the former maintenance chief of the company, for charges of conspiracy to defraud the United States which could earn them up to 20 years in prison if convicted.

Metheny was also indicted in 22 other counts of mail fraud, wire fraud, making false statements to the Forest Service, endangering the safety of aircraft in flight, and theft from an interstate shipment. In addition to the 20 years for conspiracy to defraud charges, he could get a maximum sentence of 20 years for every mail and wire fraud count, 20 years for each endangering the safety of aircraft in flight count, 10 years for the interstate theft count, and up to five years for each false statement count.

According to the findings of the National Transportation Safety Board in 2010, there was “intentional wrong-doing” by Carson Helicopters that under-stated the weight of the Sikorsky S-61N helicopter and over-stated its performance in the documents they provided to the USFS when bidding on $20 million in firefighting contracts for seven helicopters. As a result, when the helicopter attempted to take off from the helispot on the Iron 44 Fire with firefighters and a flight crew of three, it was over the allowable weight even before the firefighters boarded the ship. The helicopter crashed into some trees and caught fire, just after lifting off.

Killed in the crash were pilot Roark Schwanenberg, 54; USFS check pilot Jim Ramage, 63; and firefighters Shawn Blazer, 30; Scott Charlson, 25; Matthew Hammer, 23; Edrik Gomez, 19; Bryan Rich, 29; David Steele, 19; and Steven “Caleb” Renno, 21. The copilot and three other firefighters were seriously injured.

In March of 2012, a jury ordered the manufacturer of the helicopter’s engines, General Electric, to pay $69.7 million to William Coultas (the surviving pilot), his wife, and the estate of Roark Schwanenberg (the pilot who was killed).

After the crash, between September 26 and October 3, 2008, the USFS suspended the contract for some of Carson’s helicopters. On February 18, 2009, the USFS canceled their contract (copy of the contract) with Carson (copy of the termination letter) based on inaccurate claimed weights of the helicopters. The company then surrendered their FAA Certificate which is equivalent to an operating license. After that they received a contract for seven S-61s to fly for the military in Afghanistan as a subcontractor for the company formerly known as Blackwater Worldwide, which was renamed “Xe”. In February 2010, Sikorsky announced a joint venture with Carson to supply up to 110 modernized S-61T helicopters to the U.S. government, primarily for the State Department.

The U.S. Attorney’s office in Oregon is working with the Offices of Inspector General for both the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Transportation in Portland, Oregon and Seattle, Washington, and the FBI and the IRS in Medford, Oregon in the investigation and prosecution of this case.

Thanks go out to Joseph and Kelly.

Book published about Esperanza Fire

Bill GabbertJanuary 21, 2013July 30, 2019Uncategorizedbooks, Esperanza fire, John N. Maclean, lodd

The book that John N. Maclean has been working on for years about the Esperanza Fire has been published. Titled The Esperanza Fire: Arson, Murder and the Agony of Engine 57, it covers the 2006 wildfire that Raymond Oyler lit which raced up a canyon in southern California and overran the five-person crew of U.S. Forest Service engine 57. All five crewmembers, who were protecting an unoccupied house, were killed. Oyler was found guilty of five counts of first-degree murder, 20 counts of arson, and 17 counts of using an incendiary device to start fires. He was sentenced to death.

The firefighters who died were engine Capt. Mark Loutzenhiser, 44, of Idyllwild; engine operator Jess McLean, 27, of Beaumont; assistant engine operator Jason McKay, 27, of Phelan; firefighter Daniel Hoover-Najera, 20, of San Jacinto; and firefighter Pablo Cerda, 23, of Fountain Valley.

This extraordinary event, and the trial that followed, had a significant impact on many of us in the fire service.

Mr. Maclean’s other books about wildland fire, include Fire on the Mountain: The True Story of the South Canyon Fire, The Thirtymile Fire: A Chronicle of Bravery and Betrayal, and Fire and Ashes: On the Front Lines of American Wildfire (out of print but may be available at your local book store or at Mr. Maclean’s web site).

The new book, The Esperanza Fire, can be purchased now directly from Mr. Maclean’s web site, and each book will be personally autographed by him. It is also available at Amazon, but without the autograph. It may not be at your local book store until February 12.

If Mr. Maclean’s other books and the excerpt below are any indication, this new one will be difficult to put down.

With the permission of Mr. Maclean and the publisher, Counterpoint Press, we have an excerpt from the book below.

****

Introduction to the excerpt, written by John N. Maclean:

Just after midnight on October 26, 2006, an arsonist set a bundle of matches and a Marlboro cigarette, held together by a rubber band, into a patch of grass along a remote roadway in the Banning Pass, which connects Los Angeles with the desert communities to the east. The arsonist drove away, the cigarette burned down and ignited the matches, and the grass caught fire. That was the start of the Esperanza Fire, which eventually burned over 40,000 acres and destroyed over 30 homes and other structures. It also claimed the lives of the five-man crew of Forest Service Engine 57. The arson investigation led to the capital murder trial of Raymond Oyler, who was found guilty of arson and murder and sentenced to death.
Continue reading “Book published about Esperanza Fire”

Firefighter dies in Australia

Bill GabbertJanuary 13, 2013August 25, 2019UncategorizedAustralia, fatality, lodd, Tasmania, Victoria

Peter Cramer, on the day he was presented an award for 20 years of CFA volunteer service, DSE photo

UPDATE: January 14, 2013. The deceased firefighter has been identified as Peter Ronald Cramer, 61, a 30-year volunteer from the town of Tyers, Victoria about 160km east of Melbourne. The latest information is that he been on foot identifying containment lines before he was found deceased on a track at 5pm on Sunday.

=========

A firefighter from Gippsland aged in his 60s died Sunday while working on a wildfire in Tasmania. The man was one of 70 from Victoria that had been sent to assist with the suppression of fires raging in the state. News.com.au reported that the firefighter was on foot conducting a backburning operation on the Forcett Fire when he was killed near Taranna, about 30 air miles southeast of Hobart (map).

The firefighter’s family has been notified but his name has not been released to the public.

The Forcett fire started on November 16 and has burned 24,040 hectares (59,404 acres) within a perimeter of 200km. It is being fought by 150 firefighters using 39 tankers and four aircraft.

Our sincere condolences go out to the firefighter’s family and co-workers.

Wildfire briefing, December 3, 2012

Bill GabbertDecember 3, 2012August 25, 2019UncategorizedCanada, fatality, Illinois, lodd, Tidwell, Virginia

Firefighter killed in Clinton County, Illinois

A firefighter was killed Sunday at the scene of a wildfire that spread to a structure. Here is an excerpt from an article at KSDK:

A 45-year-old fireman with the Santa Fe Fire Protection District in Clinton County, Illinois, has been killed at the scene of a fire.

Timothy P. Jansen died of injuries sustained when he was struck by a fire truck in the 9700 block of River Road in Bartelso. The accident happened about 7:45 p.m. Sunday.

Jansen was among the first firefighters to arrive at the scene, which began as a grass fire and spread to a building.

Santa Fe Fire Chief Adam Maue said Jansen was standing on the back of a truck, pulling hoses, when he slipped off. The driver of the truck told the chief he did not know Jansen fell, so he backed up, striking Jansen.

Jansen was married and had two daughters. He’d been with the fire district for 15 years and owned a restaurant directly across the street from the firehouse.

Fire engine overturns en route to wildfire, injuring 4

A fire engine that was participating in a Christmas parade in Bedford, Virginia was dispatched to a wildland fire duirng the parade but didn’t make it to the fire. It overturned while rounding a curve, landing in Phyllis Carimi’s front yard.

Here is an excerpt from The News & Advance:

Lt. Todd Foreman, of the Bedford City Police, said he believed there were only four men inside the truck, all of whom were hospitalized.

Foreman said two were airlifted from the wreck — one to Lynchburg General Hospital, the other to Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital. The other two were taken by ambulance to Lynchburg and Bedford hospitals.

Their conditions and identities have not yet been provided.

Chief of the Forest Service expects 12 million to 15 million acres to burn annually due to higher temperatures

U.S. Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell told a group in Boise Friday that in the future even more acres are going to burn and the cost of fighting fires will continue to rise. One of his answers to the problem, of course, is to increase timber sales by 20 percent.

As we pointed out November 23, so far this year the number of acres burned, 9,093,431, was the third highest total since national wildfire statistics have been kept beginning in 1960. Remaining at the number one and two spots are 2006 with 9.9 million, and 2007 with 9.3 million.

Rocky Barker wrote in the Idaho Statesman on Saturday:

Tidwell told the City Club of Boise that as many as 12 million to 15 million acres will burn annually now because of warming temperatures and drier years.

[…]

More than 30,000 homes have burned in the past decade, Tidwell said, including 3,000 just this year — homes in a Pocatello subdivision among them. Experts expect fires to keep claiming houses, but fuel-reduction steps can make communities safer and easier to protect, Tidwell said.

Federal budget cuts will make money more scarce, but communities are increasingly taking responsibility, he said. Flagstaff, Ariz., passed a $10 million bond to do forest restoration on private and federal land there.

The comments people have left at the bottom of the Idaho Statesman article are interesting.

Canadian Commission rejects changes to codes to protect communities

From the Edmonton Journal:

EDMONTON – A federal commission has rejected proposals to change Canada’s national construction codes to better protect communities from destructive wildfires.

The changes would have required builders in areas prone to forest fires to use less flammable building materials, to space buildings farther apart and to keep them clear of trees and vegetation.

[…]

The proposal for changes came from the National Fire Protection Association and an Alberta-based non-profit group called Partners in Protection.

The proposals were submitted to the commission before wildfires in May 2011 destroyed hundreds of homes in Slave Lake, Alta., and forced thousands of people to flee. The disaster cost more than $1 billion in damage, firefighting and relief costs.

Air tankers still on active duty

Two large air tankers are still on active duty, long past their normal mandatory availability periods. More information at FireAviation.com

Thanks go out to Dick

Differences between military and Forest Service accident investigations

Bill GabbertNovember 30, 2012February 7, 2015UncategorizedCantwell-Hastings, fatality, lodd, MAFFS, report, Thirtymile fire1 Comment

The accident report on the fatal crash of the military C-130 MAFFS air tanker which was released yesterday illustrated one very important difference between accident investigations conducted by the military and the U.S. Forest Service. A notice on page two of the report points out that the findings of military aviation accident investigations are regulated by law, 10 U.S.C. 2254(d), which states:

Use of Information in Civil Proceedings.—For purposes of any civil or criminal proceeding arising from an aircraft accident, any opinion of the accident investigators as to the cause of, or the factors contributing to, the accident set forth in the accident investigation report may not be considered as evidence in such proceeding, nor may such information be considered an admission of liability by the United States or by any person referred to in those conclusions or statements.

C-130 MAFFS crash, July 1, 2012 — C-130 MAFFS air tanker crash, July 1, 2012. US Air Force photo

For fatal wildfire burnovers or entrapments of U.S. Forest Service employees, a law provides for just the opposite, thanks to a bill that was sponsored by Senator Maria Cantwell and U.S. Representative Doc Hastings, which became Public Law 107-203 in 2002:

In the case of each fatality of an officer or employee of the Forest Service that occurs due to wildfire entrapment or burnover, the Inspector General of the Department of Agriculture shall conduct an investigation of the fatality. The investigation shall not rely on, and shall be completely independent of, any investigation of the fatality that is conducted by the Forest Service.

The Cantwell-Hastings bill that was signed into law in 2002 was a knee-jerk reaction to the fatalities on the Thirtymile fire the previous year. The Department of Agriculture’s Inspector General’s office had no experience or training in the suppression or investigation of wildland fires. They are much more likely to be investigating violations at a chicken ranch than evaluating fire behavior and tactical decisions at a wildfire. The goal of the Inspector General investigation would be to determine if any crimes were committed, so that a firefighter could be charged and possibly sent to prison.

After the trainee wildland fire investigator for the OIG finished looking at the Thirtymile fire, on January 30, 2007 the crew boss of the four firefighters that died was charged with 11 felonies, including four counts of manslaughter. The charges were later reduced to two counts of making false statements to which the crew boss pleaded guilty on August 20, 2008. He was sentenced to three years of probation and 90 days of work release.

The criminal charges brought against the firefighter who may or may not have made some mistakes on the fire had a serious, chilling effect on wildland firefighters. Not only does it make them reluctant to speak to anyone about what happened on an accident, some even had second thoughts about their willingness to continue working in a professional they loved because potential criminal charges or convictions could ruin their lives and the livelihood of their families.

In addition, firefighters lawyering-up after an accident makes it difficult to discover the causes of an accident and to learn lessons which could save lives by preventing similar fatalities.

The four-fatality MAFFS accident was a complex chain of events involving many individuals and firefighting resources. But in spite of the complexity, the report was released to the public only four months after the accident, making it possible for lessons to be learned while reducing the chances of a similar accident taking more lives.

This short turnaround is unheard of in the wildland fire agencies in part due to the potential civil and criminal implications down the road.

This is literally a life and death issue — Senator Maria Cantwell’s and Representative Doc Hastings’ hastily conceived Public Law 107-203 must be repealed and replaced by one similar to 10 U.S.C. 2254(d), which serves the military very well. The Cantwell-Hastings law serves no useful purpose. Accidents are investigated, with or without the ridiculous law. It had unintended consequences and needs to be fixed.

Air Force report says microburst caused crash of MAFFS air tanker

Bill GabbertNovember 14, 2012September 30, 2019Uncategorizedair tanker, fatality, lodd, MAFFS, MAFFS 7, South Dakota15 Comments

(Update: On November 29, 2012 the Air Force released the full report on the crash. More details are at FireAviation.com HERE and HERE.)

A US Air Force report concluded that strong winds out of a thunderstorm caused the crash of a military C-130 air tanker July 1. The accident occurred on the White Draw Fire near Edgemont, South Dakota and resulted in four fatalities. Two crewmen in the rear of the aircraft were injured but survived. Those two were operating the Modular Airborne FireFighting System (MAFFS) in the cargo hold which enables the C-130 to function as an air tanker, capable of dropping up to 3,000 gallons of fire retardant.

MAFFS C-130 crash, White Draw Fire, July 1, 2012. US Air Force photo.

The report said a microburst of turbulent air out of a thunderstorm caused the crash. During a previous retardant drop on the fire the aircraft experienced a drop in airspeed despite operating under full power. Before the second drop the crew discussed the air speed problem but decided they could adjust to the conditions. The plane crashed on the second drop about five minutes after the first one.

A lead plane flying a half-mile ahead of the C-130 experienced a microburst that pushed it within 10 feet of the ground. According to a news release from the Department of Defense:

The investigation also determined factors that substantially contributed to the mishap included the failure of the Lead Plane and Air Attack aircrews to communicate critical operational information; as well as conflicting operational guidance concerning thunderstorm avoidance.

“If you add all the pieces up, it was very clear they should not have attempted the second drop,” said Brig. Gen. Randall Guthrie, the Air Force Reserve officer who led the investigation. “With all apparent conditions, they should not have gone ahead.”

The Associated Press reports:

“They struggled to keep that [lead] plane flying,” Guthrie said. A second small plane also reported “more than moderate turbulence.”

The crews of those planes failed to alert the trailing C-130 to go around the storm, the investigation found. Instead, the lead plane crew advised the C-130 to drop its load of retardant to lighten the craft to help it climb.

“We felt like they had information and the importance of that information was not passed,” Guthrie said. Those crews later said “they also didn’t really add all those factors up themselves.”

The C-130 dropped the retardant but crashed seconds later, dropping into a lightly-wooded plateau, then into a ravine and breaking apart.

The aircraft that crashed was MAFFS #7 from the North Carolina Air National Guard’s 145th Airlift Wing based at Charlotte-Douglas International Airport.

We are working on obtaining a copy of the full report. We we get it, we’ll update this article with a link.

Killed in the crash were Lt. Col. Paul Mikeal, 42, of Mooresville; Maj. Joseph McCormick, 36, of Belmont; Maj. Ryan David, 35, of Boone; and Senior Master Sgt. Robert Cannon, 50, of Charlotte. The two seriously injured were Chief Master Sgt. Andy Huneycutt and Sgt. Josh Marlowe of Boiling Springs.

UPDATE: links to the report can be found at FireAviation.com

Thanks go out to Al

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