Flight Plan

Down two dozen large air tankers, the Interior Department and the Forest Service get their firefighting fleets ready to go.

On April 20, a multiengine air tanker owned by Aer0 Union of Chico, Calif., crashed into Northern California's Lassen National Forest during a training mission. The plane, a retired Navy P-3B built for anti-submarine warfare in 1966, was slated to begin serving in firefighting missions for the Forest Service and Interior Department in May. Three pilots were on board, including Aero Union's chief pilot. All three died.

The cause is unclear, but the crash heightens concerns surrounding an entire fleet of firefighting air tankers. Last May, the Forest Service and Interior Department canceled contracts for 33 multiengine tankers used to fight wildfires, citing safety issues outlined in a National Transportation Safety Board report.

All the tankers are owned and operated by private companies. Most are retired military planes retrofitted to carry between 2,000 and 3,000 gallons of water or fire retardant. The fleet has an average age approaching 50 years. In three tanker crashes that NTSB investigated, one or both wings fell off the planes.

Last year's decision to terminate the contracts sparked an outcry. The governors of Arizona and Montana wrote to Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman in protest, Congress held hearings, and newspaper editorials expressed doubts about the agencies' ability to manage fires without the large planes.

But the agencies went to war against wildfires with the air force they had. By mid-summer, seven of the tankers-all Aero Union P-3s-were flying again. The absence of the others did not prove insurmountable; the agencies said they controlled 99 percent of fires shortly after ignition.

Fire experts say the large tankers are the most visible firefighting aircraft, but not always the most effective. "We reconfigured the aerial fleet to rely more on large helicopters," says Tony Kern, who was then the Forest Service's aviation manager and now works in the private sector. The largest helicopters, called helitankers, carry up to 2,000 gallons and are easier to maneuver than tankers. "We found in many cases that it was the preferred tool," Kern says. The agencies also had contracts with companies that provided single-engine air tankers, which are smaller than the multi- engine tankers and typically carry 500 to 800 gallons.

This year the fleet will include 26 single-engine air tankers and more than 500 helicopters, plus two "Super Scoopers"-fixed-wing amphibious aircraft that can skim water from lakes or rivers to dump on fires-and at least a few multiengine tankers. The Forest Service has contracts with Aero Union for six of its remaining P-3s and could negotiate for a seventh. Three other tanker companies will provide one plane each to fly with monitoring devices to collect data on the stresses of firefighting missions. A contractor's assessment of nine Lockheed P2Vs, the Navy's predecessor to the P-3, due in early June could clear them to fly as well.

Rose Davis, a Forest Service spokeswoman, says the agencies will wait for NTSB to determine the cause of the April crash before making any changes. "It could have been the weather," she says. "There's no point in jumping the gun."