Room to Maneuver

The Los Angeles Fire Department is making a concerted effort to relocate and expand its helicopter facilities at Van Nuys Airport in the wake of incidents involving two of its six helicopters last year, including the deadliest air crash in the department’s history.

More than $41 million for a new air operations facility is included in a $744-million public safety bond measure to be put before Los Angeles city voters in April.

But planning already is underway to provide aerial firefighters at least temporary new facilities on the abandoned Air National Guard base nearby, regardless of whether the bond measure succeeds in winning the required two-thirds approval, department officials said.

Space is so tight at the current airport facility that helicopters used for fire suppression are unable to take off with a load of water, officials said.

“It’s much like going to a fire in a truck with no water in the tank,” said Capt. Tom Brennan, administrative head of air operations for the Los Angeles Fire Department.

Encroachment from surrounding development is so close and parking for aircraft so crowded that firefighters frequently are unable to fill helicopter water tanks prior to responding to a brush fire. That’s because the added weight of water in the 360-gallon tanks requires more room for the ships to navigate.

“We’re flying out of here with no safety margin,” Brennan said, referring to the 28-year-old hangar where the city’s entire fleet of 30 ships is maintained and which doubles as the base for the city’s water-dropping, rescue and air ambulance helicopters.

Instead of filling tanks at the airport, the helicopters must land at reservoirs to fill up, usually delaying the critical initial water drop on brush fires by several minutes, fire officials said.

The situation is about to worsen. A planned Home Depot expansion just north of the city’s helicopter center and another helicopter tenant in the process of relocating to a site just east of the city’s facility will further limit routes the city’s helicopters can use to get in and out of the airport.

So critical is the situation that expansion and relocation of the helicopter operation at the airport has been given the highest priority, said Assistant Chief Dean Cathey, head of the Bureau of Emergency Services.

Cathey anticipates that a federal investigation into the deadly crash last March of a Fire Department helicopter will criticize cramped conditions at the helicopter maintenance facility. Parts, such as blades, often have to be removed in order to fit larger aircraft into the hangar, which causes greater wear and tear on equipment, Cathey said.

In addition, space built to shelter the smaller, bubble-cockpit, piston-engine helicopters used three decades ago is too cramped for the newer, 15-passenger ships, which are kept tied down outdoors.

The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the March 23 crash of a helicopter, called Fire 3 that killed three firefighters and an 11-year-old girl being taken to a hospital. Two others in the crash were seriously injured.

The investigation determined that a yoke assembly that secures rotor blades together was fractured. The cause of the fracture is still under investigation.

Authorities also have not determined the cause of a Jan. 2 incident in which a helicopter, Fire 4, made a forced landing in Rustic Canyon, about seven miles southwest of Van Nuys Airport. One firefighter suffered a broken ankle, but two others aboard were not injured. The aircraft was destroyed.

A motion by City Councilman Mike Feuer calling for an independent audit of the city’s fleet of helicopters will be brought before the City Council on Tuesday.

The air operations facility is now housed on 3.6 acres at the airport, off Balboa Place south of Roscoe Boulevard. Built in 1970, the facility includes a 5,000-square-foot hangar where aircraft are repaired and parts stored, plus cramped offices and 1,200 square feet of living space shared by about 15 pilots who work in three shifts.

The living quarters, in an upstairs area overlooking the hangar, still bear scars of the Northridge earthquake, with long cracks in the walls and ceilings and a kitchen sink and cabinets pulling away from the walls. Exhaust fumes from the engines being tested below waft into the kitchen, offices and sleeping areas.

Helicopter maintenance is provided by the city’s Department of General Services, which includes a team of supervisors, mechanics and other workers. The site, which was originally set up for a staff of 19, now houses 51, including firefighters.

When the facility was built, much of the area around the building was open fields. But development has steadily encroached, particularly within the past decade, city officials said. The problems that cause firefighting helicopters to take off with their water tanks empty began about five years ago, department officials said.

While debate has raged for years over developing a master plan for the airport, the issue remains in limbo.

Fire officials say they hope to move the operation to a site about a quarter-mile east of the present facility, on about 20 acres of the former Air National Guard base.

Calling the proposed location “almost ideal,” Cathey said the new site would move the operation closer to the middle of the airfield, giving pilots a range of options in approaches and takeoffs, with the least noise impact on airport neighbors.

Officials say their greatest hope in replacing the old facility lies in passage of the April bond measure. The measure would provide money for separate hangar and maintenance space, living quarters for firefighters and centralization of other services, such as stationing paramedics at the airport. Paramedics now must be brought in from other stations for copter missions.

The new site would also provide headquarters for the three giant fire engines stationed at the airport, designed to combat airplane crashes. Those engines are now stationed on the opposite end of the airport from the helicopter operations.

The bond measure is endorsed by the City Council and Mayor Richard Riordan, but is being opposed by taxpayer groups, including the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn. and the Valley-based United Organizations of Taxpayers.

Citing a series of examples in which bonds were approved but the facilities never built, Jonathan Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis group, criticized the high price of the bond measure, which was increased to $744 million from an original proposal of $500 million.

“The city has a terrible record of keeping its promises on bond measures,” Coupal said. He referred to earlier bond issues that were passed by voters who were told the money would fund a Valley police station and updated 911 facilities that were never built.

Supporters say that updated and expanded public safety facilities are long overdue.

Whatever the outcome of the bond election, fire officials said some sort of improvements, if only temporary, are crucial to the air operations program.

“Regardless of what happens with the bond, we have to move ahead,” Cathey said.

He estimates temporary facilities could be built in about 90 days, at an estimated cost of $600,000.

Where the city will get the money, however, he said he does not know.