Another Fire Bomber Crashed Today In France — Military Forum

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Another Fire Bomber Crashed Today In France

FlyATRs From France, joined Aug 2005, 31 posts, RR: 0
Posted (7 years 9 months 1 week 1 day 12 hours ago) and read 1926 times:

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A Conair Turbocat crashed onto a hill this morning while dropping retardant on a forest fire in South-East France.

The crew of two was KIA.

This is the 3rd loss of a Sécurité Civile (Emergency State Agency) aircraft within 6 weeks.

They already lost a Turbocat (the pilot escaped miraculously when the crew lost sight of the ground in heavy smokes and belly landed) and a Bombardier CL-415. The later broke in the air while diving on a forest fire. The crew was KIA and the whole fleet was grounded for 2 weeks for airframe checks.

The bulk of the Sécurité Civile pilots are mostly 40 years old+ former French Navy and Air Force pilots with great flight experience.

A private small single engine fire bomber (a Rockwell S2R Thruch Commander) was also lost last week.

What a sad, very sad news!

"Anything, Anywhere, Anytime - Professionally."

1 replies: All unread, jump to last

KC135TopBoom From United States of America, joined Jan 2005, 11711 posts, RR: 52
Reply 1, posted (7 years 9 months 1 week 1 day 8 hours ago) and read 1934 times:

Very sad news. Here in the US we had a bad streak like that about two years ago. A C-130A snapped off both wings, caught on video tape, and a few other fatal crashes within about three weeks.

BTW, Evergreen has their B-747-200 water tanker in flight testing for fire fighting. Up to 48,000 gallons of water or retardent can be carried and is pumped out through four nozzles on the bottom of the airplane.