Final report: firefighting plane that crashed in Australia and killed 2 likely stalled.
Sydney
Investigators said in a final report released Monday that the C-130 tanker plane that crashed in Australia in 2020 and killed all three Americans on board was likely stuck after dropping fire retardant in dangerous weather.
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The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) said that there is no evidence that the crew knew that a smaller lead aircraft called a “birddog” that was supposed to help the C-130 had turned down the mission because of safety concerns about the weather. This shows that there was a lack of information sharing, which may have led to the crash.
“We are aware that the use of huge air tankers in Australia is quite new,” Angus Mitchell, chief commissioner of the ATSB, told reporters. “And maybe these policies haven’t been as well-developed as they have been in other places where they’ve been used,” he said, naming the United States as the more advanced country.
The Lockheed Martin Corp (NYSE:LMT) C-130, flown by the Canadian private company Coulson Aviation under contract with the New South Wales Rural Fire Service (RFS), was the largest civilian aircraft to crash in Australia in terms of size.
The tragedy in January 2020 occurred amid the country’s worst fire season on record, when RFS had up to 130 aircraft per day working to extinguish fires that killed 33 people and scorched over 29.7 million acres of land.
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The ATSB stated that Coulson did not provide its firefighting big air tanker personnel with a pre-flight risk assessment tool, while RFS had limited regulations for aerial supervision needs and no processes for deploying tankers without aerial supervision.
Mitchell stated that in reaction to the disaster, Coulson has taken proactive measures to improve safety, including the installation of a pre-flight risk assessment tool and improved wind shear management procedures and training, but has denied a recommendation to install windshear detection equipment.
Coulson stated in its final report that it did not believe wind detection equipment would increase safety.
In a statement released on Monday, Chief Executive Officer Wayne Coulson stated that the operator continued to enhance its aircraft, policies, and processes in order to effectively manage hazards peculiar to the aerial firefighting environment.
Rob Rogers, the RFS commissioner, said that work is being done to improve procedures in preparation for the upcoming fire season. For example, a manual way of getting in touch with pilots who turn down jobs because of bad conditions is being set up.
In addition to Captain Ian H. McBeth, 44, of Great Falls, Montana; First Officer Paul Clyde Hudson, 42, of Buckeye, Arizona; and Flight Engineer Rick DeMorgan Jr., 43, of Navarre, Florida, were killed in the C-130 crash.
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The newly discovered cockpit voice recorder contained recordings from a flight flown in the United States in 2019, according to investigators.
