NTSB probes Air-Crane crash
There remain more questions than answers surrounding a fatal Erickson Air-Crane crash on the French island of Corsica two weeks after the fact.
A British Columbia pilot and his French co-pilot died the morning of Aug. 26 when the S-64E Air-Crane they were flying crashed near Solenzara Air Force Base near the village of Ventiseri. It had been fighting a fire and broke away from that because of a technical problem. The aircraft was owned by Erickson and chartered by the French Interior Ministry to battle fires on the French Mediterranean island.
Kerry Walchuk, 44, of Clearwater, B.C., flew for Erickson subsidiary Canadian Air-Crane. His co-pilot was Jacques Pierard. The helicopter was run by a French company, Helipaca, which in turn leased it from Erickson.
The Central Point firm has 18 remaining aircraft it operates or leases for logging and fire suppression efforts around the world. The rest of the Erickson fleet remains in service. Erickson President Ralph Torney declined comment on Wednesday.
The crash is being investigated by the National Transportation Safety Board, which checks into all U.S. registered aircraft accidents no matter where they take place. The Sikorsky Skycrane frame was originally built in 1968, and after it was overhauled by Erickson it was re-certified in October 2002. The craft had been in France for a year, according to FAA records.
A good part of Walchuk’s career was spent logging in remote areas, according to the September 1998 issue of Canadia Forest Industries magazine. Air-tanker pilot Ted Hobart noted in a pilots’ association Web page that Corsica’s terrain presents some of the most difficult firefighting in the world because of mountain winds, downdrafts and shears.
A French Fk-27 fire bomber pilot, J.B. Arrieu Albertini, reported on the association Web page that the helicopter’s tail was found 200 meters from the rest of the airframe, which was completely burned.
The pilots were awarded a French medal of bravery and given full French military honors in a ceremony held Aug. 30, according to wire reports.
Erickson spokesman Dennis Hubbard said the investigation will likely take months and noted that a review of a crash involving a Carson Helicopter aircraft three years ago was still open.
According to the Mail Tribune archives, the last crash involving an Erickson Air-Crane was in September 1994, when an Air-Crane dropped into a remote lake in the Cabinet Mountains in northwest Montana. The helicopter’s three-man crew escaped without injury.
http://www.mailtribune.com/archive/2004/09...ies/09local.htm
