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Air Tanker Crash
06/17/02 - Terri Russell and Tim Ill watch as air tanker sent to fight
wild fire crashes near Walker; three crewmembers confirmed dead
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WALKER, Calif. (AP) - An air tanker fighting a blaze near Yosemite
National Park caught fire Monday and crashed in this Sierra resort town,
killing all three crew members and just missing a mechanic's shop,
authorities and witnesses said.
A Reno, Nev., television news crew captured the scene on videotape as
the wings broke off, the fuselage rolled left and spiraled nose first
into the ground.
"It was almost surreal," KOLO-TV reporter Terri Russell said. "You saw
it go down and for a second, I thought, 'is that really what I saw?' "'
Medical crews were sent to the mountain hamlet after the plane went down
in a ball of flames shortly before 3 p.m., said Laura Williams,
spokeswoman for the Sierra Front Interagency Dispatch Center in Minden,
Nev.
Williams said she had no information on the crew and it wasn't clear
whether anyone on the ground was injured.
Jerry Johnston, operations officer with the Federal Aviation
Administration in Hawthorne, Calif., confirmed all three crew members of
the C-130 transport plane were killed in the crash "under unknown
circumstances after making a drop" of retardant.
"It was destroyed on impact and by fire," he said.
Investigators for the National Transportation Safety Board were on the
way to the scene, he said.
Other aircraft battling the fire were grounded. High winds had grounded
tankers and helicopters Sunday.
Russell, who witnessed the crash, said one of the plane's wings was on
fire before the tanker lost altitude and crashed within 150 feet of an
auto shop.
"I'm standing here looking at the tail section," shop owner Mike
Mandichaka told The Associated Press by telephone. "My shop is right
next door. It almost hit it."
The tanker was battling an 8,000-acre blaze that had forced 400 people
out of their homes. Walker is 90 miles south of Reno, and about 25 miles
north of Yosemite. At least one home has burned.
A deputy coroner on the scene said the bodies would be taken to Bishop,
Calif.
KOLO-TV's news crew was interviewing a man watching the skies with his
own camcorder near Walker Sporting Goods Mobile Home Park when the plane
came into view.
The plane came in low to the ground trailing a red flow of fire
retardant above tall green pines. Both wings suddenly snapped off, with
flashes of flame as they separated. The fuselage rolled left and
spiraled nose first into the ground.
"We saw it circle around once and then drop through the middle there.
... That's where we saw it break up," Russell said.
The fire from the crash threatened about 10 structures in the immediate
area, including homes, trailers and the mechanic's shop.
Many residents had made a narrow escape from wind-whipped flames Sunday
night.
"The flames were coming down the mountain toward the town so it was time
to go," Dan McCall said as he watched the fire burn a few miles east of
town Monday afternoon.
"You could feel the heat and hear the roar of the flames," he said.
(Copyright 2002 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
Stay tuned to News Channel 8 for more information about this crash and
the Cannon wildfire.
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