2002 Airtanker Crashes - Prior Safety Concerns and Incidents

Prior Safety Concerns and Incidents

Concerns about the safety of older transport aircraft being used as airtankers had been ongoing, long before the 2002 crashes. In the early 1980s, concern about the age and safety issues of World War II and Korean War-era aircraft that were the predominant aircraft used as airtankers led the Forest Service to initiate a program to provide more modern, turbine-powered C-130As to contracting companies. However, this solution quickly became the problem. According to an NTSB advisory,

During a C-130A contract pre-award evaluation in 1991, the Department of the Interior's (DOI) Office of Aviation Services inspectors concluded that essential inspection and maintenance services critical to sustaining the airplane in an airworthy condition under normal operating conditions were not being accomplished with the C-130A. This prompted the DOI, in 1993, to prohibit the use of the C130A on DOI land. The FAA and the DOI subsequently developed an action plan to address many of the same inspection and maintenance issues seen in the most recent C130A and P4Y accident investigations. Since that time the DOI has dropped its restrictions on the C130A....

On August 13, 1994, C-130A N135FF, c/n 3148, delivered as USAF 56-0540, in December 1957, call sign Tanker 82, crashed near Pearblossom, California while fighting a fire in the San Gabriel Mountains. Eyewitnesses reported seeing an explosion followed by the separation of the right wing at the wing attach point. Due to the extremely rugged terrain, the NTSB recovered only a small portion of the wreckage, and its preliminary conclusion that an explosion caused by a fuel leak led to the wing separation was based largely on eyewitness statements. A subsequent independent investigation in 1997 led by Douglas Herlihy, a former NTSB investigator, reexamined the site and the wreckage, and found no evidence of an explosion, but rather found evidence of structural failure due to fatigue stress. The NTSB subsequently reexamined its findings, and found evidence of fatigue cracking "consistent with overstress separation", and ultimately revised their findings. The initial eyewitness reports of an explosion are not inconsistent with a fatigue-caused wing separation. Similar eyewitness reports were given in the 2002 crash, and an analysis of a video of that crash showed the initiation of a fireball 0.9 seconds after the wing separated.

On September 6, 2000, a C-130A, former USAF 56-0478, c/n 3086, delivered in March 1957, registered N116TG, operated by T&G Aviation, fighting a fire near Burzet, France crashed killing two of the four crewmen on board. It struck a ridge while preparing for a second drop on the fire.