Incident: Meriwether
Released: 8/3/2007
press release
provided by
Meriwether Public Information
Things that go wrong in the air sometimes make things go better up there in the future.
A midair malfunction on a small air retardant tanker plane during operations on the Meriwether Fire last week is a perfect example of how flying fires becomes incrementally safer over time.
At about 1 p.m. Friday, making a flight out of the air tanker base near the Helena airport to support the Merewether fire, pilot Andy Mitchell took off with a full load (450 gallons) of fire retardant in his small plane, commonly referred to as a SEAT (Single Engine Air Tanker).
The seemingly routine SEAT retardant flight, something that Mitchell has done hundreds of times before during his 17 years of flying for M&M Air Service out of Beaumont, Texas, turned unusual right as he lifted off the tarmac.
"As soon as I broke ground, the baggage door (where the retardant is released from) came unlatched in air," Mitchell said. "I could see it, hear it and feel it, and knew exactly what it was."
Since Mitchell was beyond the point of landing after having just taken off, air traffic control instructed him to fly to a safe area in a nearby field and dump his load there. "I jettisoned the load where the tower told me," he said, "and they then gave me priority to land right afterwards."
Back on the ground, Mitchell quickly assessed the damage. "There was no loss of control in the air," he said adding that part of the door ended up wedging into the tail fin. "When I looked, one quarter of the door and one quarter of the side panel were missing."
Mitchell's quick landing ended the flight safely, but it was no accident that this accident had a happy ending.
"He handled it well," Helena Forest Aviation officer Shane Klakken said. "His training and experience served him well. He knew he couldn't land right away, he got rid of the retardant and then landed safely."
Ken Terrell, the SEAT manager at the base at the time of the incident, said that the exhaustive inspection processes that are required for air operations on fires played a major role in this situation, and that the lesson learned will now become part of that overall process.
"We do a lot of routine inspections and work with the pilots to make sure planes are fully operational on a daily basis," Terrell said. "Because of that effort and cooperation, we were able to turn this mishap into a positive learning experience."
Terrell said a report was filed on the incident and, that as a corrective measure, the door hinge on the plane was changed to allow air to hold the door in close to the fuselage, rather than in the position as to where it could peel away from the plane.
For his part, Mitchell was largely unfazed by the incident, and ready to go back to work by the time his aircraft was repaired Wendesday. "Everything went pretty smooth," he said of his fastest load and return flight ever. "I am back on availability as of this morning."
