Blue-ribbon panel announces aerial findings
The Blue Ribbon Panel on Aerial Firefighting revealed its findings at a December news conference in Boise, Idaho. The panel was chartered in mid-August to identify key information for planning the safe and effective future of the agencies' aerial firefighting. Panel members Jim Hall, Earl McKinney and Bill Scott presented the panel's findings in the areas of safety, operational effectiveness, training, contracting and management of the programs.
The panel, led by co-chairs Jim Hall, former chair of the National Transportation Safety Board, and Jim Hull, Texas State Forester, led six public town hall meetings with private industry contractors, entrepreneurs and academia. They met with aviation professionals within the federal and state firefighting agencies to look at problems and successes in the areas of air tankers, including heavy, medium and single-engine air tankers; lead planes; and Air Supervision Modules, helicopters and Air Attack platforms.
Forest Service Fire Director Jerry Williams and Bureau of Land Management Fire Director Larry Hamilton also presented a joint statement from Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth and BLM Director Kathleen Clarke announcing immediate changes to the agencies' aerial firefighting programs.
The Forest Service and the BLM will no longer contract for the C-130A or PB4-Y aircraft as air tankers. The agencies will be consulting with the Federal Aviation Administration to develop a rigorous inspection and maintenance program for the other models of heavy air tankers to provide a greater margin of safety. Aircraft that pass the inspection and follow the maintenance program will continue to be used.
In addition the Forest Service is suspending fire mission operations of 19 government-owned P-58 Barons that are used as lead planes for air tankers and four Sherpa (Shorts 330) smokejumper aircraft pending evaluations of safety issues identified in the blue-ribbon panel's report.
Statement from Bosworth and Clarke, and the blue-ribbon panel's final report are available at www.nifc.gov.
Acceptable Use Policy blog comments powered by Disqus
