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In the interest of speed and timeliness, this story is fed directly from the Associated Press newswire and may contain spelling or grammatical errors.
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Forest Service says fatigue caused wing to fall off air tanker
Tuesday April 22, 2003
By ROBERT GEHRKE
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) An air tanker that erupted in flames and
plunged to the ground fighting a Colorado forest fire last year
went down because of a crack that started at a half-inch rivet on
its left wing and spread, according to a Forest Service
investigation.
It was almost identical to the failure that caused the crash of
another tanker fighting a fire in California a month earlier,
killing three, said Dan Hawkins, president of Hawkins & Powers
Aviation Inc. of Greybull, Wyo., which owned both planes.
The Forest Service report obtained Tuesday by The Associated
Press identified the cause of the Consolidated Volte PB4Y-2 crash
as fatigue and failure of the left wing's forward spar, a unit that
helps hold the wing to the fuselage.
The crash killed pilot Rick Schwartz of Ulm, Mont., and co-pilot
Milton Stollak of Cathedral City, Calif., who had a combined 10,000
hours of flight time, including more than 1,750 in the PB4Y. The
plane crashed July 18 while fighting a wildfire in rugged foothills
near Rocky Mountain National Park, about 40 miles northwest of
Denver.
After the crashes, the remaining PB4Ys and the Lockheed C-130As
were grounded and this year the Forest Service has not renewed the
contracts for either model of plane, believing they pose an
unacceptable risk.
Both planes were old the PB4Y was 57 years old and the C-130A
was 44 years and they had been flown long hours in brutal
conditions during last year's severe fire season.
The Forest Service report was obtained under the Freedom of
Information Act. Reports by the National Transportation Safety
Board and Federal Aviation Administration have not yet been
released. Last September, the NTSB said fatigue cracks caused the
wings to shear off both planes.
Inspecting the forward spar that failed would require removing
the retardant tanks and using a mirror and flashlight to even be
able to get a glimpse of the rivet that inspectors pinpointed as
the origin of the crack, investigators said.
The PB4Y had passed inspections in February and undergone
maintenance and repairs throughout the year. ``It had passed all
the checks that they asked that we do on them and we maintain them
consistently,'' Hawkins said. ``You've got to go in deeper than
anything that was ever talked about before.''
Hawkins' engineers have proposed a fix for the PB4Y that has
been approved by the FAA and he would like the Forest Service to
use the planes in the upcoming fire season.
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On the Net:
Forest Service: http://www.fs.fed.us
Hawkins & Powers: http://www.hawkinsandpowers.com
(Copyright 2003 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
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