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hold" has removed critical firefighting aircraft from the skies during one of the busiest and most destructive wildfire seasons ever to hit the West.
• That left 14 federally contracted heavy tankers in use until investigators gain a better understanding of what caused the crash.
• "You've basically lopped off eight air tankers immediately from your inventory, and that's going to make it tougher to fight wildfires," said Mike Archer, who distributes a daily newsletter of wildfire news.
• "And who knows how long the planes will be down?" he said, adding that investigators will take time to make their conclusions.
• The C-130 from an Air National Guard wing based in Charlotte, N.C., was carrying a crew of six and fighting a 6.5-square-mile blaze in the Black Hills of South Dakota when it crashed Sunday, killing at least one crew member and injuring others.
• The crash cut the number of large air tankers fighting this summer's outbreak of wildfires by one-third.
• President Barack Obama signed a bill last month hastening the addition of seven large tanker planes to the nation's rundown aerial firefighting fleet, at a cost of $24 million, but the first planes won't be available until mid-August.
• C-130 air tankers have crashed on firefighting duty before. In 2002, a privately owned civilian version of an older-model C-130 crashed in California, killing three crew members. The plane broke up in flight and an investigation blamed fatigue cracks in the wings.
• The crash, in part, prompted a review of the airworthiness of large U.S. air tankers and led ultimately to a greatly reduced fleet of large civilian tanker planes. The 44 planes in the fleet a decade ago has dwindled to nine being flown on U.S. Forest (Continued on page 21)
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