Why Was Tanker That Crashed Still in the Air?
A series of images taken from a video aired on television shows a C-130A aircraft losing its wings and crashing while battling a wildfire near Walker, Calif., in June, killing the three crew members. It was the latest in a string of crashes that has brought the nation's entire aerial wildland firefighting program under review. A report to the U.S. Forest Service is expected soon.
(Tim Ill/The Associated Press)
BY SCOTT SONNER
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
RENO, Nev. -- Federal safety investigators are trying to determine why an airtanker fighting a wildfire for the Forest Service crashed in the Sierra this summer. Critics say their time would be better spent trying to learn why the vintage military surplus plane was in the air in the first place.
The C-130A cargo plane that took three crew members to their deaths would have been pulled from fire duty years ago if the Forest Service had listened to warnings from the agency's own experts, the Agriculture Department's inspector general, the federal government's property manager, a private whistleblower who sued in protest and federal prosecutors in the Justice Department's fraud unit.
Early Warnings: The Forest Service was told repeatedly that the 46-year-old aircraft with the wing that snapped off near Walker, Calif., in June should not have been released from the Air Force "boneyard" at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson, Ariz., in 1988 and virtually given to Hawkins & Powers Aviation Inc. of Greybull, Wyo.
Hawkins & Powers is a longtime firefighting contractor which, along with others, has been hired for decades for the dangerous mission of dropping retardant on wildfires in rough, inaccessible terrain. The company says it legally secured the plane that later crashed and insists that its aircraft are safe.
The plane that crashed in the Sierra was one of nearly two dozen the Air Force released to private contractors in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The aircraft exchange program later brought federal indictments in 1996 and sent two men to federal prison.
The exchanges were halted under the Clinton administration, but most of the planes remain in the hands of the private contractors.
The transfers were portrayed at the time as necessary to bolster the Forest Service's depleted firefighting fleet to help save property and lives from devastating wildfires.
But thousands of pages of court documents and correspondence suggest the exchange was driven by contractors seeking profits. Some used the planes to moonlight on questionable overseas missions, ignoring U.S. restrictions limiting their use to domestic firefighting.
The Justice Department brought criminal charges and convicted two men of conspiracy to steal 22 planes for their role in the exchange program -- Fred Fuchs, the Forest Service's ex-assistant director of aviation, and Roy Reagan, a former Defense Department official and airplane broker who helped secure planes for Hawkins & Powers and others, including the one that crashed in the Sierra this summer.
The Agriculture Department's inspector general first recommended the agency repossess the planes after two of them were caught hauling cargo illegally in Kuwait in 1991.
"After the inspector general's report, I think GSA, the Air Force and the Navy all took the position that the government should go reclaim those aircraft," said Ron Hooper, the Forest Service's procurement officer who served as a technical adviser to an independent blue ribbon panel that just completed a review of the agency's firefighting operation.
Who Owns Them? As recently as November 1998, the Forest Service attempted to recover the planes, Hooper said. But the contractors resisted and several of the planes have been tied up in legal battles since in "a variety of jurisdictions," he said.
Justice Department officials maintain the ownership of the planes never legally transferred to the contractors, but said it wasn't their job to recover the property.
Reagan's defense lawyer at the time questioned why the contractors still were in possession of the planes while his client was being sentenced to 30 months in prison for obtaining the planes for them.
The blue ribbon panel of experts said Friday the Forest Service's safety record is unacceptable and changes should be made. It specifically faulted the Federal Aviation Administration for taking a hands-off approach when it comes to certifying and inspecting the firefighting aircraft.
The report said safety standards for the contract pilots and crew flying firefighting missions are lower than for those flying other government missions, and the government does not impose special standards upon private contractors to reflect the severe conditions in which the aircraft are flown.
Experts inside and outside the Forest Service have been warning since 1994 -- the last time there were two fatal crashes in the same year -- that the aircraft were not properly maintained. Since 1992, there have been seven airtanker accidents and 15 fatalities.
The plane that crashed in the Sierra has a history similar to the nearly two dozen others the contractors secured from the government under the exchange program -- including seven to Hawkins & Powers.
Like the others, this C-130A frequently changed hands among the contractors and others, through sublease arrangements in some cases and outright sales with title transfers in others. There were allegations that the repeated title transfers were an attempt to avoid Forest Service restrictions by hiding them in a cloud of paper.
The Justice Department's amended criminal complaint filed against Reagan and Fuchs in U.S. District Court in Tucson Oct. 31, 1996, said Hawkins & Powers and the other four contractors "used the aircraft for other than intended or authorized purposes and sold some of the aircraft parts for profit."
The contractors were named only as unindicted co-conspirators. No charges were brought against them.
Reagan served 20 months of a 30-month prison sentence and Fuchs served his two-year sentence before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned their convictions in a 2-1 ruling in July 2000, ruling the sentencing judge failed to give proper jury instructions on the statue of limitations.
A series of images taken from a video aired on television shows a C-130A aircraft losing its wings and crashing while battling a wildfire near Walker, Calif., in June, killing the three crew members. It was the latest in a string of crashes that has brought the nation's entire aerial wildland firefighting program under review. A report to the U.S. Forest Service is expected soon.
(Tim Ill/The Associated Press)
BY SCOTT SONNER
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
RENO, Nev. -- Federal safety investigators are trying to determine why an airtanker fighting a wildfire for the Forest Service crashed in the Sierra this summer. Critics say their time would be better spent trying to learn why the vintage military surplus plane was in the air in the first place.
The C-130A cargo plane that took three crew members to their deaths would have been pulled from fire duty years ago if the Forest Service had listened to warnings from the agency's own experts, the Agriculture Department's inspector general, the federal government's property manager, a private whistleblower who sued in protest and federal prosecutors in the Justice Department's fraud unit.
Early Warnings: The Forest Service was told repeatedly that the 46-year-old aircraft with the wing that snapped off near Walker, Calif., in June should not have been released from the Air Force "boneyard" at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson, Ariz., in 1988 and virtually given to Hawkins & Powers Aviation Inc. of Greybull, Wyo.
Hawkins & Powers is a longtime firefighting contractor which, along with others, has been hired for decades for the dangerous mission of dropping retardant on wildfires in rough, inaccessible terrain. The company says it legally secured the plane that later crashed and insists that its aircraft are safe.
The plane that crashed in the Sierra was one of nearly two dozen the Air Force released to private contractors in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The aircraft exchange program later brought federal indictments in 1996 and sent two men to federal prison.
The exchanges were halted under the Clinton administration, but most of the planes remain in the hands of the private contractors.
The transfers were portrayed at the time as necessary to bolster the Forest Service's depleted firefighting fleet to help save property and lives from devastating wildfires.
But thousands of pages of court documents and correspondence suggest the exchange was driven by contractors seeking profits. Some used the planes to moonlight on questionable overseas missions, ignoring U.S. restrictions limiting their use to domestic firefighting.
The Justice Department brought criminal charges and convicted two men of conspiracy to steal 22 planes for their role in the exchange program -- Fred Fuchs, the Forest Service's ex-assistant director of aviation, and Roy Reagan, a former Defense Department official and airplane broker who helped secure planes for Hawkins & Powers and others, including the one that crashed in the Sierra this summer.
The Agriculture Department's inspector general first recommended the agency repossess the planes after two of them were caught hauling cargo illegally in Kuwait in 1991.
"After the inspector general's report, I think GSA, the Air Force and the Navy all took the position that the government should go reclaim those aircraft," said Ron Hooper, the Forest Service's procurement officer who served as a technical adviser to an independent blue ribbon panel that just completed a review of the agency's firefighting operation.
Who Owns Them? As recently as November 1998, the Forest Service attempted to recover the planes, Hooper said. But the contractors resisted and several of the planes have been tied up in legal battles since in "a variety of jurisdictions," he said.
Justice Department officials maintain the ownership of the planes never legally transferred to the contractors, but said it wasn't their job to recover the property.
Reagan's defense lawyer at the time questioned why the contractors still were in possession of the planes while his client was being sentenced to 30 months in prison for obtaining the planes for them.
The blue ribbon panel of experts said Friday the Forest Service's safety record is unacceptable and changes should be made. It specifically faulted the Federal Aviation Administration for taking a hands-off approach when it comes to certifying and inspecting the firefighting aircraft.
The report said safety standards for the contract pilots and crew flying firefighting missions are lower than for those flying other government missions, and the government does not impose special standards upon private contractors to reflect the severe conditions in which the aircraft are flown.
Experts inside and outside the Forest Service have been warning since 1994 -- the last time there were two fatal crashes in the same year -- that the aircraft were not properly maintained. Since 1992, there have been seven airtanker accidents and 15 fatalities.
The plane that crashed in the Sierra has a history similar to the nearly two dozen others the contractors secured from the government under the exchange program -- including seven to Hawkins & Powers.
Like the others, this C-130A frequently changed hands among the contractors and others, through sublease arrangements in some cases and outright sales with title transfers in others. There were allegations that the repeated title transfers were an attempt to avoid Forest Service restrictions by hiding them in a cloud of paper.
The Justice Department's amended criminal complaint filed against Reagan and Fuchs in U.S. District Court in Tucson Oct. 31, 1996, said Hawkins & Powers and the other four contractors "used the aircraft for other than intended or authorized purposes and sold some of the aircraft parts for profit."
The contractors were named only as unindicted co-conspirators. No charges were brought against them.
Reagan served 20 months of a 30-month prison sentence and Fuchs served his two-year sentence before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned their convictions in a 2-1 ruling in July 2000, ruling the sentencing judge failed to give proper jury instructions on the statue of limitations.
