[durt]

Three American firefighters have have died after their C-130 water tanker plane crashed while battling a bushfire near Cooma in southern NSW.



A Canadian-owned C-130 Hercules air tanker crashed while fighting bushfires in Australia’s alpine region on Thursday, killing all three of its crew, authorities said.

The victims were American residents, Australian authorities said, adding that they did not immediately know why the plane crashed while carrying a load of fire retardant.

A spokesman for Australia’s Civil Aviation Safety Authority said the aircraft went into a valley to drop the retardant and did not emerge.

“The tanker impacted heavily with the ground and initial reports are that there was a large fireball associated with the impact of the plane as it hit the ground. There is no indication at this stage of what’s caused the accident.”

[K53]

They came to help, sad.

[kellyhound]

While Australia has a fleet of about 140 firefighting aircraft, including small and large planes and helicopters, the crash in the Snowy Mountains has cut the number of C-130s in half.

Two of the planes were available to the National Aerial Firefighting Centre (NAFC), with the remaining one stationed at Avalon Airport on the outskirts of Geelong, Victoria.

The C-130 that crashed on Thursday was brought to Australia in August 2019, and Coulson Aviation had the required safety approvals for the operation of the aircraft in Australia.

The cost of leasing aircraft to fight fires in Australia is large and in December the Federal Government announced an $11 million boost to the previous $15 million allocated each year to the NAFC, bringing the total cost of operations to $26 million.

In 2017, the NSW Government invested $38 million over four years for three Large Air Tankers to be used in firefighting efforts.

Why is the C-130 so effective at fighting fires
The aircraft was first used for military purposes and has had many other roles over the years, including dropping aid packages.

But when it comes to firefighting, they are superior to many other planes because of their load capacity and rear hatch.

The plane can carry 15,000 litres of water or fire retardant, which can be released in one large drop within seconds, or over several smaller drops.

According to Tim Collins from Upstream Aviation, who has 40 years of experience flying C-130s, they are so effective because they can be flown low to the ground for maximum impact when dropping retardant.

"They're big and fat, they can carry 15,000 litres of fire retardant and they don't have to go fast," Mr Collins said.

The aircraft can also be refilled in just 12 minutes and can take off and land on short, unsurfaced runways.

Earlier this week, the Royal Australian Air Force posted a video explaining how the C-130s are utilised in fighting fires, and the challenges pilots face.

The crew of the aircraft typically consists of three highly skilled people.

Mr Collins said it took a pilot a few seasons of training to be ready to fly the planes in the bushfire conditions they face.

"They are experienced pilots who only do this type of flying," he said.

"They are highly skilled and told to drop retardant in a certain place and are often able to do so."

His comments were echoed by retired aeronautical engineer Dave Wardall — who worked for California's fire service, CalFire, for 34 years — and said he had chartered C-130s to fight blazes.

"Unlike airline pilots, most of this is all hand-flying, It's very fatiguing," Mr Wardall said.

"Those folks are very highly trained. It takes three fire seasons for a newbie to train to become a pilot."

But there are also inherent factors that make water-bombing operations difficult and dangerous.

"One of the big issues is you have to stay out of the smoke. If there is light smoke you can fly through it, but if there is heavy smoke you can't get into that smoke," Mr Wardall said.

"If we get an inversion or smoke that's so bad that we can't see the terrain then we park the aircraft."

In 2002, a C-130 had its wings fall off mid-flight as it was fighting northern Californian wildfires. It rolled, inverted and crashed into the forest below, killing all three crew.

Then later in 2012, another C-130 crashed in South Dakota while fighting a fire, killing four crew members and seriously injuring two.

What may have happened near Cooma?
The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) believes the aircraft had just dropped a line of fire retardant before it hit the ground.

There is speculation by experts based on past incidents as to what may have caused the plane to crash.

"The aerial firefighting environment is terrifically hard on an aircraft with anywhere from 5.7 to 7 times the fatigue of airline flying," Mr Wardall said.

Mr Collins believes there "are a handful of scenarios that could have happened" with the most likely being the aircraft could no longer handle the conditions.

"The stress on the aircraft becomes too much and it breaks up in flight [is the most likely]," he said.

"Or it becomes so turbulent up there because of the extreme heat that the pilots lost control of the plane, or they get into thick smoke, become disoriented, can't see the ground and they crash the plane."

What happens next?
Coulson Aviation has grounded their Large Air Tanker fleet as a precaution and as "a mark of respect", and an investigation will take place into the incident.

The investigation will be led by the ATSB, while the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) will provide support as requested.

[monster666]

Wow...just wow.

[Yanni]

started even more fires, i suppose.

[William May]

Originally Posted by Yanni ↗

started even more fires, i suppose.

No, they said it actually crashed in an area that was already on fire, and that was one reason they hadn't been able to get to the crash site.

[ObamaPhones666]

That's retardant....


heh.