The Olympian (Olympia, Wash.) Heavy air tankers set to return to wildfire fight

BY BECKY BOHRER

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

BILLINGS, Mont. — The government is planning to return a smaller force of heavy air tankers to the federal firefighting fleet this summer, using a stricter set of maintenance and inspection guidelines that officials say will make the industry safer.

The government expects to have at least 16 air tankers, a mix of P-2Vs and P-3s, available this summer. That's roughly half the size of the fleet in 2004, before the Forest Service and Department of the Interior grounded the planes due to questions about their safety and airworthiness.

The concerns stemmed from a National Transportation Safety Board report on three fatal air tanker crashes in 1994 and 2002 — two of the deadliest years for that segment of the industry.

Each of the three planes crashed after one or both of the plane's wings snapped off. Eight firefighters died. The NTSB investigation cited inadequate maintenance procedures that failed to detect fatigue cracking in the wings.

For example, NTSB said inspection and maintenance programs used by Hawkins & Powers Aviation of Wyoming for the two air tankers that crashed in 2002 were based on military standards. Those called for visual inspection for cracking but not “enhanced or focused inspections of highly stressed areas, such as the wing sections, where the fatigue cracks that led to those accidents were located,” NTSB said.

It wasn't an isolated problem; NTSB said companies were generally not able to tailor maintenance programs to the rigors of firefighting because they didn't have the necessary engineering expertise or information about the previous life of the aircraft — such as the hours it had flown — readily available. Limited knowledge about the stresses of the fire environment also played a role, NTSB said.

A former NTSB chairman said he applauds the new maintenance effort, but he says progress overall has been lacking.

Jim Hall, who helped lead an independent review of the government's aerial firefighting program in the wake of the crashes, said key issues raised by that review, ranging from contracting to investment in new aircraft, have yet to be addressed.

“I think the concerns of the panel continue in regards to the overall safety of the program,” Hall said in a recent interview. The fact that the decades-old, former military planes weren't designed for firefighting also is troubling, he said.

“It's just a continuation of business as usual, of using these old military aircraft. ... There is obviously a greater risk with the use of that type of aircraft,” he said, noting, specifically, the P-2Vs that served the military in the 1950s and '60s.

Government and industry officials are just beginning to understand how the firefighting environment — the turbulence, the force, the retardant loads — affects the planes. But, they say they're confident in the maintenance and inspection protocol now in place, and in the safety of the planes being cleared for flight.

Jeff Holwick, a regional aviation safety inspector with the Forest Service, acknowledged the industry was in “a bit of a black hole” in understanding the fire environment before 2004 and that the accidents were a wake-up call that changes were needed.

“I don't believe anybody in the past, present or future is going to turn a blind eye to a safety concern,” Holwick said. “We just didn't know the nitty-gritty of where to actually look, and now we do.”

With the P-2Vs, for example, a private consulting firm hired by the Forest Service to craft a more in-depth maintenance and inspection program listed 47 spots on the wings and tail that required detailed inspections to find problem spots early, said James Burd, co-owner of the firm, Avenger Aircraft and Services.

The program, which accounts for where cracks, corrosion or other problems may show up because of the firefighting environment, also calls for more frequent inspections during times of heavy aircraft use, rather than calendar-based evaluations that were previously more common, he said.

Burd said that while no widespread problems have been detected, some wing cracks have been found that if left untended could have created a safety problem.

An evaluation of the stresses of firefighting is expected soon, he said, with officials working from monitoring data gathered from specially equipped planes. The inspection program will be adjusted to reflect the results, Burd added.

Preliminary findings suggest demands on firefighting air tankers are less severe than or equal to those on planes in a military role, but more severe than what commercial aircraft experience, he said.

At least six planes, including a P-3, are expected to be fitted with monitoring equipment this year, said John Nelson, an aviation management specialist with the Forest Service.

Inspection of the P-3s, a successor to the P-2Vs, is based currently on a Navy program that takes into account factors such as metal fatigue, Nelson said. The P-3s were the first planes cleared for a return to service, in mid-2004, when the government said the tankers' airworthiness had been determined.

Both programs are “as current as we can make them, based on the knowledge we have today,” said Larry Brosnan, the Forest Service's assistant director for fire and aviation. He expects changes to both programs as more is learned from the monitoring work.

In addition, he said the agency is taking a more active role in inspection and oversight of the private contractors who own and fly the planes under government contract. Cockpit voice recorders are expected to be in all the tankers this year, he said, but not the flight-data recorders that experts like Hall have recommended.

A plan for modernizing the overall aviation program is expected at year's end, Brosnan said.

“We're still trying to improve, still trying to do better,” Brosnan said. “But it's not something that happens overnight.”

NTSB has said the steps taken to address concerns with the heavy tankers should apply to the entire aerial firefighting fleet.

Len Parker, co-owner of Minden Air Corp., in Nevada, said he doesn't mind going through process that “literally involves disassembling the entire aircraft and inspecting everything.”

“And, quite frankly, the light that's been shed on this business caused us to do things, and the government, too,” said Parker, who expects to have at least two P-2Vs flying this fire season. Both he and Brosnan believe the industry is safer today than it was two years ago.

Hall, the former NTSB chairman, isn't so sure.

In testimony to a congressional subcommittee earlier this year and a follow-up letter to the subcommittee's chairman, Hall, speaking for the disbanded review panel, reiterated concerns that meaningful steps have not been taken quickly enough.

“This matter is urgent, and continuing down the current path is a waste of time and places the American public at greater risk every day, to say nothing of the pilots and others that are charged with flying old, converted military and commercial air tankers,” he wrote.

May 27, 2006