Aging Firefighting Planes Pose Risk, Officials Say

Federal safety officials on Friday recommended stricter maintenance and inspection programs for firefighting aircraft after concluding that aging metal caused three fatal air tanker accidents in the last 10 years, including one in the Sierra Nevada.

The National Transportation Safety Board said procedures for detecting the problem, known as fatigue cracking, did not adequately account for the increased safety risk posed by older firefighting aircraft or the severe stresses those planes encounter.

“We hope the release of these reports will raise operator awareness of the unique problems that affect these specialized aircraft and the importance of a thorough maintenance program to detect safety issues and prevent accidents,” NTSB Chairwoman Ellen Engleman Conners said.

In 2002, three crew members were killed when a 46-year-old Lockheed C-130A crashed after it lost both wings in the Sierra near Walker, Calif., about 70 miles south of Reno. A Reno television crew caught the moment on videotape when the plane’s wings broke off and the tanker crashed in a fiery explosion.

Similar problems were found in an aging PB4Y-2 that broke up and crashed fighting a Colorado fire that year, killing both crew members.

The similarities of those crashes prompted the NTSB to reopen its investigation into the 1994 crash of a C-130A, which, like the others, had been converted to a firefighting air tanker. The right wing of that plane came off in flight, killing three people. Witnesses said they saw a flash and then a fireball near where the wing connects to the fuselage.

The NTSB had originally concluded that the explosion was probably caused by fuel that leaked from a pressurized fuel-line system and ignited. Since then, the safety board determined the blast was caused by fuel that ignited after the wing separated.

Because the firefighting flights were conducted for the government, they were not required to comply with federal aviation regulations. The safety board sent its recommendations to the agencies responsible for the flights, the Interior Department and the Forest Service.

The Forest Service grounded its fleet after the two crashes in 2002 but developed a new inspection program with Sandia National Laboratories at Albuquerque, N.M., that allowed the agency to reactivate the aircraft.

The safety board, though, said “currently applicable” maintenance and inspection programs were inadequate.

Interior Department spokesman John Wright said, “We will do what it takes to make these aircraft safe and to improve the safety of our firefighters.”