Firefighting Tanker Fatal

denverpilot

denverpilot

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News is that firefighting tanker N14447 crashed today, both pilots fatal, on the NV/UT border.

RIP.
 
Word on FB is that a second one also had gear trouble today but landed successfully.

Bad day. Pushing the old iron hard.
 
I was at Neptune in Missoula today when this happened... Was standing there when the phone call came in.. Didn't know what was going on. I asked and the lady at the desk just said "They didn't tell me much, we just sell the gas" and then went quiet. They've lost an alarming number of these in the past few years. Four if memory serves (and one ground loop that everyone walked away from but wasn't a write off). They're replacing them with some sort of jet that I see at 500' AGL that they just got approved and ready for work, they grounded another neptune (as in boneyard grounded) about a week ago due to cracked spars I believe. They also lost an Arrow out of their rental fleet about a year ago too.... Been a rough few years for them. :(
 
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denverpilot said:
Word on FB is that a second one also had gear trouble today but landed successfully.

Bad day. Pushing the old iron hard.
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I don't know if that was today, seems that story was in the paper about a month ago, was a non issue, he just manually put the gear down and landed.
 
They're replacing them with some sort of jet that I see at 500' AGL that they just got approved and ready for work, they grounded another neptune (as in boneyard grounded) about a week ago due to cracked spars I believe. They also lost an Arrow out of their rental fleet about a year ago too.... Been a rough few years for them.
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Neptune put a BAE 146 on line, and Minden has been working on one as well. The BAE 146 is a -200 model, retired airline airplane. One is in service, and two more are to be put in service this year.

When the P3's went out of service, they were the last of the Type 1 tankers; the BAE-146 puts another Type 1 tanker (3000 gallons of retardant) in service again.

Presently the only two heavy tanker companies in the country are Minden and Neptune, both flying the P2V. There's Tanker 10 with the DC-10, and there was Evergreen's B747, but with such limited application as to not be available as national resources.

It's been a rough year for tankers since they were first used to fight fires. It's a rare year not to lose a tanker. It's never easy, though.
 
DouglasBader said:
Neptune put a BAE 146 on line, and Minden has been working on one as well. The BAE 146 is a -200 model, retired airline airplane. One is in service, and two more are to be put in service this year.

When the P3's went out of service, they were the last of the Type 1 tankers; the BAE-146 puts another Type 1 tanker (3000 gallons of retardant) in service again.

Presently the only two heavy tanker companies in the country are Minden and Neptune, both flying the P2V. There's Tanker 10 with the DC-10, and there was Evergreen's B747, but with such limited application as to not be available as national resources.

It's been a rough year for tankers since they were first used to fight fires. It's a rare year not to lose a tanker. It's never easy, though.
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Butler Aircraft is still flying DC-6s out of KRDM as well, and I think Aero Union is still going isn't it??
 
Aero Union shut it's doors two years ago. Butler/TBM was shut down for fire operations in the US; they don't have any federally contracted tankers. They moved their C-130 operations to France, and have a DC6 state contract.

Only a few tankers remain. One of Minden's two remaining tankers was lost (for now) in the gear-up incident at Minden, NV. They had three; T-99 was lost near Lake Arrowhead, California several years ago when it struck a mountain side. It was T-55 with the gear, and now they've just got T-48 remaining.
 
bartmc said:
I don't know if that was today, seems that story was in the paper about a month ago, was a non issue, he just manually put the gear down and landed.
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Nope. This is new and quite a bit more serious than that. Video...

Left main didn't come down. Pilot did a good job in what looks to be a pretty stiff crosswind, but the aircraft is beat up.

http://video.foxnews.com/v/1672640150001/
 
The incident involving Minden Air happened the a couple of days ago, and involved substantial damage.
 
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