Helicopter Fleet’s Relocation Seen as Big Boost for Safety

Calling it a critical safety issue, the Los Angeles Fire Department is taking steps to hoist its fleet of water-dropping and rescue helicopters out of troubled quarters at Van Nuys Airport.

The fleet of six airships was moved earlier this month from a cramped ramp to a larger site at the airport half a mile away. By January, the entire air operations crew, as well as the administrative and communications center, is scheduled to relocate into modular buildings on the newly leased 5-acre site.

The larger site allows crews, for the first time in five years, to fill water tanks on helicopters at the airport, rather than having to fly to a water reservoir en route to a brush fire. Until now, they did not have enough room to maneuver water-laden aircraft out of the airport. The new location shaves critical minutes off response time, officials said.

“The first step for us for the safety and efficiency of the operation was to move out of where we were and we’ve done that,” said Assistant Fire Chief Dean Cathey, head of the Bureau of Emergency Services.

Funds for the $1.4-million move were scraped together out of the city’s current budget by the mayor’s office, the City Council and administrative staffs. Officials said immediate steps were needed after voters in April turned down a $744-million public-safety bond measure. The bond would have provided more than $41 million for a new air operations facility.

The city Fire Commission in October approved the action after studies found serious safety problems at the air operations facility. The studies were prompted by several incidents involving fire helicopters, including a crash in March 1998 in which three firefighters and an 11-year-old girl were killed after a helicopter tail rotor assembly failed.

Although the National Transportation Safety Board is still investigating those incidents, city studies found that crowded and inadequate facilities could contribute to the wear and tear on helicopter parts.

In a report last month, members of a Fire Department air operations work group concluded that a series of initial steps is “essential to the successful and safe operation of a state-of-the-art emergency / rescue aviation system.” It also found that the old helicopter ramp was “dangerously small and inadequate” and presented “an acute clear and present danger of ground and hover collisions with other craft.”

A red line painted on the tarmac of the former Air National Guard site marks the new heliport, which currently consists of only tie-downs for the helicopters and four fire hoses lying ready to fill water-dropping tanks. The helicopters are parked next to a wide, concrete taxiway, allowing pilots plenty of space to maneuver aircraft during takeoff and landing, far from adjoining neighborhoods.

“This clear space is really heaven sent for us,” said pilot Paul Shakstad, gesturing toward the taxiway. A 28-year-veteran with the department, Shakstad said he watched in chagrin over the past decade or so as development steadily encroached on the old heliport, built in 1970 on a 3.6-acre site.

“We no longer had safe approach and departure paths,” he said.

A Home Depot, built directly north of the old heliport, will soon expand, and an airport business has relocated directly east.

A temporary trailer with bunks for two pilots is parked at the new heliport site, while quarters for the rest of the team, as well as the operations center, remain in the old building. Crews currently race to their helicopters in a pickup truck to answer a call.

The temporary trailer, dubbed “Ice Station Zebra” because of its remote location, will be replaced when modular buildings are erected, officials said.

The recent steps are only the first of improvements that officials say are sorely needed to improve the aerial firefighting and rescue operation. Ultimately, the city hopes to lease 20 acres of the Air National Guard site for a full heliport and maintenance facility.

The proposed facility would include separate hangar and maintenance space and centralization of other services, such as stationing paramedics at the airport and relocating fire engines designed to handle plane crashes.

Paramedics currently must be summoned from other fire stations miles from the airport, causing delays in responding to emergencies. The engine crash unit is based at a station on the opposite end of the airfield from the helicopter operations.

Funds for those improvements, targeted for completion in the next five years, have not been identified. Cathey said several options are being considered, including another attempt to win voter approval of a bond measure.

“But there are other funding sources,” he said. “Our challenge is to be creative.”